Wildlife Loop...

 

South to Custer State Park today, with a plan to ride the Wildlife Loop.  A beautiful day, not too hot, not chilly.  Joan packed us a picnic lunch.

I brought both 360 cameras.  I put one on the back of Joan's bike and just let it run while we were on the Wildlife Loop... just in case we saw something interesting.  The most interesting thing about that loop today was a freshly redone road: it was a delight to ride!  When we rode it last year, it was in dire need of getting a fresh surface.

 

More than half way through the loop, we stopped where the "begging burros" are a sure thing... they weren't there.  Not a buffalo to be seen.  No deer, antelope, or elk.  Plenty of cars and motorhomes.  Except for 3 extremely tight curves, this is an easy road for an RV, where many of the Custer State Park roads are not.

About 2/3 of the way through the loop, there were some stopped vehicles on the road ahead - a sure sign of some "wildlife."

Yep - begging burros.  At this point, we were happy to see them!

 

On with the rest of the loop, and eventually to Highway 87.  A right turn there, and one mile up the road, we stopped for a picnic at the Blue Bell Lodge area...

Lunch was good.  I didn't bother to turn on either camera when we rolled away from the picnic.  Of course, it was the only buffalo we saw, and no place to stop and turn on a camera.  We rode through the park and stopped at the Visitors Center - as many times as we've been here, this is the first that we went into the Visitors Center.  It is nicely done... and good bathrooms.  ;-)

From there, it was on to Iron Mountain Road.  The riding was good, but about half way through the road, we got behind a couple cars who were obviously not going to give us the opportunity to get around.  We turned off on Playhouse Road - equally good riding, less traffic.  From there, it was a right on Highway 40 - nice sweeping curves, one 15% grade, good road surface.  We took that to Hwy 79, then back to Hart Ranch.

A fine day of riding.

There will be a video coming at some point that I will put here and edit this post.