We took a
trip to the Windy Cave National Park this morning and had lunch in greater
downtown Custer's sprawling metropolitan area- population 1860 people, Hell, it's smaller than the Village of Romeo,
Michigan where we live. I noticed at
least three different types of people in this town this time of year: Natives, tourists and investors.
The Black
Hills is a beautiful place this time of year the drive through the high
mountain region (average 4100 feet) had green valleys, forested areas, rivers,
lakes and everything perfect location for a restful getaway. We went looking for Elk in Elk Valley near
Windy Cave National Park, instead we found a heard of buffalo. We did not get too close to the heard but it
must have been at least one hundred individual buffalo; calves, young and
adults. We also found several in the
field by themselves, one of them rolling in the dry patch of dirt. These seemed like outcasts from the heard,
probably social misfits that wanted to be alone. But they gave us an opportunity to get
reasonably close and take some pictures.
I feel sorry for buffalo, they are one of the most ugly critters in nature.
Windy Cave
National Park is a region just south and continuous from Custer State Park
making the combined region and the sites in the north (Crazy Horse and Mt
Rushmore) a combined recreation area over fifty miles long and nearly twenty
miles wide a camping and RV paradise.
The natives
of this area come in two flavors:
descendants of the original Indians and descendants of the
settlers. Of course now they all work
either farming, construction or service jobs.
The Indian descendants are obvious by their features, although many of
them are chunky like the rest of the tourists who are visiting. The descendants of settlers who do not live
in town have a unique look: Their faces
are very weathered- deep wrinkled, freckled, sunburned skin - they were either
well physically preserved older people or very old looking younger people. Most of the men, although clean, were unkempt
with three to ten day beards and hair pulled back under their
"standard" cowboy hats. The
women seemed a little better but it was clear that a day of hard work did not
leave much time for hair care.
We went into
town from our campground to have a steak dinner and sample the local fare. With a population of 1860 people, the whole
town is less than ten blocks long and three or four blocks wide. The Cattleman's Restaurant seemed inviting
and we decided to try it out. Very nice spacious
place with western décor, including the long-horn cattle horns on the beams of
the ceiling. The unique and surprising
thing is that it was owned and staffed by Chinese; Chinese waiters, Chinese
busboys, Chinese hostess, some of the staff had a problem with English. It was a Chinese restaurant with a Western
menu. The food was great, but the
personality was that of a restaurant in Chinatown in San Francisco and not the
laid-back western setting I expected.
The whole staff even wore "Chinese" outfits including the
cloth sandals.
One of the
unique things about Custer is the painted buffalo statues that seem to be just
about every corner of town. The unique
thing about these buffalo statues is that the artist has painted scenes of
events, attractions, and scenes of the surrounding area. For example, there was obvious a great forest
fire not too long ago, we saw the remains in the fields we hiked and drove
through. There is also a scene of the
annual roundup of the buffalo in the Fall, a scene of a mountain lion in the
rocky peaks, even the presidents of Mt. Rushmore are painted in one of
these. There were many more throughout
the town.
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