Certainly one of the coolest and most interesting state parks that we’ve visited over the course of our trip, Custer State Park in South Dakota has a lot to offer. The wildlife alone is worth a visit. We managed to see a wide variety of animals during our time inside the park: prairie dogs, pronghorn, deer, burros, pheasants and, of course, buffalo.

Lots and lots of buffalo of all ages and sizes. In the photo above you can see a family of buffalo that were part of the herd of buffalo that roam freely throughout Custer State Park. It’s a large herd, at least 100 of them, probably more. The field where we stopped comes right up to the road and so did the buffalo, some of them even enjoyed walking in and across the road at their leisure. It’s a bit intimidating being that close to an animal that weighs about 2,000 pounds and can stand as much as six feet tall at the shoulder.

I’d been trying to get a photograph of a male pronghorn for about a week now, and finally, here in Custer State Park I was able to get one. They are very fast and many are quite skiddish. We saw one male pronghorn sprint down a hill and across a road without so much as a sideways glance. Something had spooked him. The male pronghorn pictured above scampered out of sight as soon as I’d finished taking his picture.

Did I mention that we had a milestone today? A big one. 10,000 miles driven. Yep. And lucky for us we reached this milestone while watching the buffalo in Custer State Park (seen in the background). It wasn’t the best spot for us to stop and do a quick photo shoot, but we thought that the setting was fairly unique and decided to go for it. And ten we hopped back in the car, tomorrow we’re going to visit Mount Rushmore!