Day 4-BA2.12.1 is the current variant
The Needles…you can’t tell, but we’re at the top of a huge cliff…
Wildlife loop and the bison…
More bison in the middle of the road…
5/15/22. Sunday
9:00-10:00 - I sleep in because I’m on vacation. B. leaves for the complimentary breakfast - you know the drill - and I make coffee and take my shower. Lotion. Light make-up. Leggings and a sweatshirt.
10:00-11:00 - B. returns with bacon and eggs and I sit out on our balcony and take in the scenery. It’s so beautiful here and the weather is perfect. I could sit in my hotel room all day and be content, but we have places to go.
11:00-3:00 - B. and I leave for Custer State Park because B. remembers hearing something about the Needles tunnel?? or the Needles Highway?? at this park. Custer is huge and about an hour away from our hotel. We drive in through the Visitors Center and receive a pamphlet but it’s confusing as I can’t quite figure out what we’re supposed to do.
We find the Needles Highway on the map and take it, driving up, up, up through the mountains (its a 14-mile road), with cliff-side views. Here’s how it’s billed in the pamphlet: “The Needles Highway is a spectacular drive through pine and spruce forests, meadows surrounded by birch and aspen, and rugged granite mountains. The road’s name comes from the needle-like granite formations which seem to pierce the horizon along the highway.” The higher we climb, the more granite formations we see - the “Needles” - which are truly amazing and draw rock climbers from all over the world.
From my research, lava appears to be The Needles’ origin story, similar to the Devils Tower. Was the entire state of South Dakota once covered in lava? If yes, for how long? Where was the original volcano? Apparently, lava seeped into the earth, 8 miles down, and hardened into these spire-like formations. Over thousands of years erosion occurred, stripping away the sediment and eventually revealing huge feldspar and quartz crystals, aka The Needles.
Go back in time to when you were a kid…did you ever try to make rock candy? This is a cheesy science experiment for kids that allows them to watch sugar crystals form into spires of rock candy over several days - we did it in my 5th grade class. You boil water, add sugar and stir, then dump the mess into a Mason jar and stick a wooden dowel in it. The sugar molecules cling together to form crystals. The Needles remind me of my old rock candy science experiment, except the rock formations are NOT translucent like sugar, although they are made of quartz.
As we drive into the mountains, we find the Needles’ tunnel that B. heard about and we drive through it. This is an incredibly dangerous stretch of road. Only one car at a time can go through this very narrow, granite tunnel BUT there are no traffic lights or signs to advise who was first or who should go next, etc. Drivers just have to work it out amongst themselves. B. and I watch a tour bus traverse the tunnel right before we go - I’m not quite sure how the driver did it. Passengers on both sides of the bus could literally touch the sides of the tunnel if they could figure out how to get the windows open.
Finished with Needles, B. and I decide to take Wildlife Loop Road for the scenic route, which is an 18-mile stretch of road that encircles the park and highlights the open grasslands. Cars are advised to go slow, which we do, when suddenly we come across a huge herd of buffalo! Apparently this stretch of the park is known for the “bison round up.” I’m not sure if that happened before we came, but there are so many buffalo, they are blocking the road and coming up to the car. We have to turn the car off and sit for awhile until they all pass. I ask B. to take a picture of me in the car with the bison milling about so you can see how close they are (see the top of the blog). It’s incredible!
3:00-4:30 - Custer Park is very beautiful and there is more to see but we simply don’t have the time. B. and I call it and drive back to Keystone.
4:30-6:00 - It’s my birthday [yes, I’m 52], so B. and I return to the Ruby Restaurant, in Keystone, for a round of drinks. The service is slow. At some point, B. must have told waitstaff that it’s my birthday because they bring over a cupcake as a surprise, which tastes great.
6:00-8:00 - Back at the hotel room and I still have leftovers from last night so I microwave them and eat dinner in the hotel room. B. says he’s not hungry. I watch a few Forensic Files episodes.
9:00-11:00 - Long day, but really fun. Nighttime routine. Bed