Saturday, August 16

 

Today we slept in a little later than usual.  The day before had really wiped us out.  Our first item on the agenda was to find the buffalo so off to Custer State Park we headed.  No sooner had we turned onto the Wildlife Loop than we were stuck in the middle of a herd of buffalo.  We both became snap happy with the camera, but both so overcome with excitement at seeing these majestic creatures that we couldn’t help ourselves.  After all, how often do you get stuck in the middle of a herd of buffalo?  About a half hour passed and we were able to move on to the next set of creatures.

We encountered the prairie dogs just a mile or so down the road.  Derek was able to get one of the prairie dogs to come right up to him.  After playing with the prairie dogs, we headed up the road to the begging burros.  They weren’t too interested in us though because we didn’t have any food.  A nice lady and her daughter gave Derek a handful of potato chips to feed the burros.   The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful with only a few sightings of buffalo off in the distance and a few here and there alongside the road.

After driving through Custer State Park, we headed off to Derek’s pick of Bedrock City to see the Flintstones.  We passed through the city of Custer, whose main street is unusually wide.  This was built for the bull teams to turn around on.

Derek absolutely loved the Flintstones Park.  We were able to walk through the town of Bedrock, watch a musical (mechanical) show, get a picture with Barney and Fred, and also ride in Fred’s car.  They also had a train that took us through a canyon hunting for dinosaurs.  Derek’s highlight was the purchase of Betty and Wilma tattoos which he promptly put on when we arrived back at the hotel.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing in our room switching between cartoons and shark shows.  Can you guess you watched what?  We ended up staying awake until about one o’clock in the morning, but since there were no big plans for the next day, we didn’t care.