Winnebago Voyage: Hot Springs: Mammoth Site & forest fire smoke

We decided to take a more southern drive, and headed south back through Custer Park and into Wind Cave National Park. We want to go into the cave, but the parking lot was packed, so we didn’t stop. We’ll go back pretty early one morning and try again.

We headed into Hot Springs, which is an old town with lots of buildings built out of reddish sandstone from a local quarry. In 1974, a developer had a bulldozer starting to dig a foundation, and it uncovered a mammoth bone. It turns out that thousands of years ago, there was a sink hole here, and lots of animals, mainly mammoths, died in the pit, when they couldn’t get out. They have uncovered bones of 61 mammoths, mostly Columbian mammoths and a few wooly mammoths. They built Mammoth Site of Hot Springs, a building around the excavation, which is an active paleontological site. We saw a movie about the place and then went on a guided tour.

When we came out, we noticed that a haze had developed in the distance, and at first thought it was from the heat, but then could smell the smoke. I looked it up on my phone, and there are forest fires in Canada, which have sent smoke covering much of the US midwest. So, the rest of our day was looking through smoke.

We drove back up the Needles Highway in reverse from yesterday and took a few pictures, but the haze made it difficult.

We did see quite a few creatures today. There was a group of bison crossing the road in front of us, and of course there were lots of prairie dogs. We also saw some pronghorns with a baby, another bison with some birds riding on its back, deer, and some wild turkey hens with babies.

Our radio was tuned into XM 40's jazz,

and it sounds like he's enjoying the music!

Notice the sign as he gets across the street.

This guy had at least four birds on his back when I first saw him
but by the time I turned around, some had flown away.
This one stayed on his back as he crossed the road!