South Dakota's Black Hills region is a spectacular place. This trip marks our third visit to one of our favorite places to visit. It is remarkably different from the flat prairie of eastern South Dakota we just drove through. The steepness of variety of hill sizes makes for interesting views as you drive around. Also makes towing the Jeep behind the RV trickier. However it is beautiful here. When you go visit the Badlands add a stop here.

After arriving at the Mt. Rushmore KOA we unpacked and relaxed and enjoyed our first smores in a few weeks.

The next morning we headed into Keystone for some touristy shopping and to ride the alpine slide.

Next up we drove into Custer State Park, one of Jessie's favorite places. The scenery is beautiful and there are a lot of opportunities to see wildlife. We entered the park via the famous Iron Mountain Road.

We saw a lot of animals, and had to negotiate a lot of other drivers too. There are signs throughout the park warning visitors not to approach the bison, however many people ignored this advice adding to the traffic jams.

You know how drivers in the park stop to see what other's are stopped to see? We decided to see if we could point to nothing and get a car to stop. It worked!

As we were pulling this prank Jessie actually saw some wildlife in the direction we were pointing.

This gave me another idea. What if we were stopped and pointing and taking pictures of something that was actually there, but a form of wildlife not native to the park?

I couldn't see the reactions of the people in the cars that drove by, but a motorcyclist drove by and shouted to his passenger, "There's a good one!"

That evening we went to Mt. Rushmore for their lighting ceremony. Jessie thought there was fireworks, but it was a history lesson consisting of a ten minute speech followed by a twenty minute video. Then the lights were turned on. It wasn't fireworks but it was cool.

The drive to the Mt. Rushmore memorial is spectacular. I took this picture just because it was a neat rock formation. I realized later I had inadvertently captured Clinton Rock.

Compare with what we looked like when we first visited in 2008.

After the lights came on. A beautiful sight.

On the way back to the campsite we stopped to capture a shot of Washington's profile.