Day four of our trip was our designated "enjoy Custer State Park" day with a day trip to Sylvan Lake and driving the Wildlife Loop.
Scott cooked us up an awesome breakfast of eggs and bacon, with coffee.
Then I hiked over to the lodge for my grad class. They had a good wifi signal on the front porch where I set up to do some homework but the connection wasn't good enough for the video conferencing part of the class so I had to move inside. :(
It was a lovely view while it lasted!
Scott and the kids hiked across the road to the nature education center while I was at my class and enjoyed their own classes there as well as all the fun things to play with.
They have a whole schedule of talks and classes throughout the day and they had a great time! The girls learned about turtles and colored turtle shells while Michael painted a cool hanging of Mt. Rushmore.
After my class, we packed up to head to Sylvan Lake. Again, it was right at the peak time of late morning/lunch hour and the place was bananas. We circled around for a while looking for a parking spot before we found one right in front of the lodge. We staked out a spot for a picnic, chatting with a nice family there who let us take their table.
It was very pleasant!
We then changed into our swimsuits and began the hike (the long way) to the beach. The beach looks deceptively close to the lodge but it is about a mile hike. We purposely did this so we would have the reward of swimming after the hike.
The lake loop is so fun and a pretty easy hike with a few challenges. We did it fine in our swimsuits...ha! Luckily I wore clothes over mine to save the eyeballs of fellow park goers but everyone thought the girls were so cute. :)
We had fun exploring lots of caves and wandering in streams.
We did make it to the beach but I have no photos of it, probably due to the fact I had to leave my backpack quite aways away from where we were. The water was super cold (freezing!) but Michael and I did a swimming feat out to the big rock in the lake and back as well as climbing up on the other big rock in our bare feet (ouch!). The girls and Michael had a lot of fun playing in the sand and building lakes and dams and then destroying them. It was a really nice afternoon and we probably spent about an hour or more at the beach.
We did have to complete the loop to get back to our car which was quite the journey after being tired from swimming and playing. Our spirits were lifted when we saw a cute turtle chilling on a log who then jumped into the water and started swimming. We tried to take a family selfie with him but I think our results may not have been successful unless that tiny dot in the water is the turtle.
We headed back to the cabin for chili, hot dogs, and chili dogs for supper. Yum!
We hung out until dusk then we set out for the wildlife loop in the park. The park was so lovely at this time of day, photos don't even do it justice.
We didn't see a ton of buffalo but some elk and deer as well as burros and prairie dogs.
The burros were quite a surprise as we didn't see them last time we visited. They had quite a crowd around them!
These guys were all in an overlook parking lot but later we saw them wandering around more. I think they know when they see cars it means treats!
Our last stop was for the prairie dogs. Michael loved them and spied quite a few in their little homes. The prairie dog village was just past the place where we saw the burros.
It was at this point where we turned around because it was getting dark and we had only done a small part of the loop. I think you really need to set aside a few hours to do the whole thing- it is huge. We tried to find the special roads they used on the safari to track down more buffalo but we were unsuccessful. Driving the loop on your own is free but I suppose if you want to be guaranteed to see buffalo you can do the safari which is pretty expensive.
Whew, that did it for day 4! Thanks for stopping by!
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