We stopped at Belle Fourche and toured the museum in the Chamber of Commerce. We also walked around the monument. Flags from all 50 states fly around the compass rose.
From Belle Fourche we headed to Custer, SD. We thought Custer would be a better vantage point for touring the area. We stayed at a Passport America Park--Broken Arrow Horse Campground.
Since we arrived late in the afternoon, we started touring early the next morning. Our first stop was Custer Skywalk 
to find a geocache located along the trail.
At the halfway point was an overlook for the town of Custer.
From Custer we headed west to Jewel Cave. We stopped there 2 years ago, but missed the cave tour by a few minutes. This time we made it for the scenic tour. There were 743 steps in the 1/2 mile tour. It was an interesting cave, but Bob and I both like caves with more varied formations.
We walked around Hill City and visited the shops which were open. I have seen so many tourist shops that I am all shopped out--nothing varies except the names on the souvenirs! We also found some geocaches in town.To get back to our campground, we drove part of the Norbeck Scenic Byway. The byway has some very narrow tunnels.
From the Norbeck Overlook we could see 'The Heads.'
The next day we went to Custer State Park to find the caches hidden in the park. Our first stop was Lake Bismark just inside the west entrance. We had a great hike up and down the rocks in the area.
Mt. Coolidge is located in the park and there was a geocache hidden among the rocks at the base of the building.
We had a great view from Mt. Coolidge!
Another day we drove the wildlife loop in Custer. We saw most of the animals advertised--buffalo,
coyotes, turkeys, pronghorn antelope,
deer (white-tail and mule), and burros.
From the wildlife loop we drove south to Wind Cave. Most of the buffalo herd from Custer was located at Wind Cave the day we drove through. We stopped at the visitor center, but did not tour the cave.
We enjoyed the hiking in the area. The day we were going to go to 'The Heads,' we stopped to hike a trail in Black Hills National Forest and Norbeck Wildlife Preserve.
There were 3 geocaches along the trail, but we could only find 2. The one we couldn't find was above this waterfall.
The evening before we left the area, we drove the wildlife loop again. This time we saw more burros and people feeding them!
When we left Custer and Broken Arrow Campground, we headed to Ellsworth AFB outside of Rapid City. It was time to do laundry, visit the commissary, and get new tires for the front of the rv. With all the rough roads we have driven, the front tires were wearing in a funny pattern and the front end needed an alignment.Friday morning we packed the rv and headed to the tire place for our new tires. That took about 45 minutes then it was on to the place where we could get the front end aligned. We finally left Rapid City about 1 o'clock. Next stop---THE BADLANDS!
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