Geography Blog Hop?: 1st stop- South Dakota Black Hills OR What We Did This Weekend!

Custer, South Dakota~ Oldest City in the Black Hills. This isn't where we stayed this past weekend, but we drove through there and stayed at the Game Lodge area campground in the Black Hills National Forest.

We live in Wyoming now and you might think,"Wyoming=Yellowstone National Park". Which you would be right. But we live on the other side of Wyoming. Here it looks a lot like Nebraska (flat and dry...and a lot of cows). That picture there should give you an idea...Not much green down where you see "Torrington", not much in the way of elevation changes either.

We ventured to South Dakota (to see Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse) twice last year and just fell in love with the Black Hills. We went back again the second time for more sightseeing and climbing (Harney Peak). This year our purpose was simply for some R&R and that's exactly what we got. Not much in the way of sightseeing nor driving (car didn't move once we turned it off after arriving). But here are some photos from last year and this year:

All those photos are from last year, our first and second trip. Here are some from this trip. No buffalo in these photos :) We stayed right at the campground and although we saw many buffalo chips, no buffalo (bison??)!



There was a pond in the campground that had ... cattails!!! I haven't seen cattails since I lived in Ohio, so at least 20 years! My kids have never actually seen a cattail and this was their first to touch one too :) We were intruding on a spiders territory though and didn't know it in our excitement. (Check out that zigzag stitch!!)




A few more just because photos :) The first one was Lee getting an artistic shot of the fire

and a cocoon.

and some deer in the field by the pond

Here's a last picture, I drew this after our hike up Harney Peak last year.

and a photograph my hubby took:


Honestly, while we were there this time we didn't 'learn' anything ;) We visited the 'theater' and watched a PowerPoint by Kelly Jo Schumaker (oops probably spelled her name all wrong) which was very informative. Homestake Mine (in the Black Hills) is now home to a laboratory where they are researching "Dark Matter". Sounds interesting...or creepy, however you want to look at it! Anyway, I plan on getting us more educated about South Dakota this coming week.

Haven't decided where we will go next for our Geography Hop...