Day 3: Custer State Park Buffalo and Burros!

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Today was all about buffalo, burros, and more buffalo!

We started the day by driving the Wildlife Loop Road. We saw a prairie dog town and got a kick out of all their little yelps. We then saw our first herd of buffalo. When Jia and I ran to get a better look at them, we both ended up stepping in buffalo pies! 

 

 

We then encountered many, many more buffalo in a huge herd right by the road. There were tons of babies. Some of the bison came so close to the car that I thought they would bump it, and I was scared to put my window down for photos because they were right there. It was quite the close encounter. I’m so glad the girls had the opportunity to experience it. We ended up seeing five herds in all—hundreds of buffalo. It was amazing! The girls were thrilled.

In addition to buffalo, we met up with the park’s “begging burros.” These burros expect food! We brought a large bag of baby carrots and went through them in a flash. There were a couple of sweet baby ones and some older, more aggressive ones. One of them licked Willa in the face. She didn’t like it. We fed them from outside and inside the car. When we were in the car, the burros stuck their entire heads into the vehicle! We also saw lots of pronghorn, rabbits, and deer. 

After this, we ended up going to Custer Medical Clinic because none of our family vacations would be complete without a trip to the doctor. When we left early Saturday morning, Jia developed hives and she has continued to develop them ever since. The doctor thought she was allergic to something she ate before she left, and gave us some tips on how to deal with the situation while we’re here.

The evening was quite dramatic. After dinner, Willa ran outside to play. Then, as she tells it, “I saw people in another cabin looking at something, so I looked too, and I thought, wow, that is a big tree stump by our cabin. And it’s moving. A buffalo!” She ran inside and shouted, “Buffalo!” Indeed, there was a huge male buffalo right next to our cabin. It spent hours grazing around the cabins. People were generally good about keeping their distance, but one man with a camera got a little too close and the bison charged! The man ran and tried to hide behind a tree, but when he peeked out the bison charged again! The man tried to run away, but fell in the road and possibly broke his camera. The buffalo eventually slowed down and the man was able to escape. Words of caution: Buffalo don’t snort or stamp a foot before charging, they just run at you!

 
We had started a campfire to make s’mores, but had to abandon it because the buffalo returned. He finally meandered on, and spent most of his time grazing and scratching his head on trees. He was such an enormous creature!

We returned to making s’mores and telling spooky stories by the fire. I gave the girls and a kid from a neighboring cabin glow sticks and they played all night while we chatted with the neighbors. At one point, we heard chirping louder than our chatter, and we discovered that a noisy bat family with new babies lives under the eaves of our cabin! 

We’ve had so much fun experiencing the wildlife here, and Willa has been talking nonstop about how much she loves nature. Plus, there are no mosquitoes! The forest, prairie, and rock landscape of the park is just breathtaking and the animals are so majestic. We are loving being here.