Day 8 Keystone, SD, to Casper, WY

We went back to Mt. Rushmore this morning to take daytime pictures.

After leaving Rushmore, we drove south towards Custer State Park.  The route we took was Iron Mountain Road, with many of hairpin turns and several one lane tunnels.  Before we entered a tunnel we blew the car horn in case someone was coming from the opposite direction.

Pronghorn fawn.  We saw many more pronghorn, but they were moving away.

Prairie dogs post lookouts.

There were more buffalo, but we like the setting here

Our next scenic byway today was the Needles Highway.  Again it was sharp turns and small tunnels.  As the road climbed, we saw more and more stone formations (called needles).  The most impressive was the "eye of the needle" at the top of the mountain.  It was very windy and cold up there, and that tunnel was the most narrow, only 9 feet wide.

We left Custer Park by Lake Sylvan, setting for the Nicolas cage movie National Treasure. Cinematographers import Mt Rushmore (from 30 miles away) and do a much more fantastical job of  showing the lake than our photos.

 We stopped for ice in Custer SD and visited the Courthouse Museum.  It was worth more than the half hour we took there.  Exhibits included 1890's households mining and industry, weapons, a jail and  the courtroom with judge Beth.  The Courthouse yard was the site of the only "legal" hanging in this county

I liked the room of local taxidermy.

and the wooden plumbing exhibit

We spent the rest of the afternoon driving to Casper.  We drove over the plains of SD and WY  with many big ranches..  We saw very few cars on our 150 mile drive. As we enjoyed the wide open spaces, I couldn't help but remember the song "Home, Home on the Range", where the antelope play and the skies were not cloudy all day!