WIND CAVE NATIONAL PARK (SD)

FRIDAY - After revisiting Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park, twice, I think it's time we go visit a "new to us" National Park.

To be completely transparent, we drove through this National Park two years ago and even perused the gift shop in the Visitor Center. Thanks to a broken elevator, we didn't feel that we could check this park off as "visited" considering we didn't get to take one of the cave tours they offer.

Now, just short of two years to the day, we're back and this time the elevator is in working order. We've pre-purchased tickets for the Garden of Eden Tour at 10:00AM tomorrow morning.

We noticed that as we were leaving the Reuter Campground this morning
we were also simultaneously leaving the Black Hills National Forest of Wyoming?

Shortly after crossing the border between Wyoming and South Dakota
we saw this interesting rock formation up ahead on the right.

We saw a roadsign for a scenic lookout up ahead, so we pulled over to see how scenic it was.

After our 105-mile moving day it wasn't long before we arrived at Elk Mountain Campground.

We pulled into Campsite #19, the site we scouted out two years ago.

We don't dare open the windows all the way on the driver side for fear of them getting ripped off.

I knew we could find a better use for this picnic table, it makes an excellent Starlink riser.

SATURDAY - We drove down to the Visitor Center early this morning to pick up our tickets for our 10:00AM cave tour. They open at 9:00AM and we were there just a few minutes later and the large parking lot was nearly full.

We walked in and the first thing I noticed was the long line of people waiting to purchase tickets. Fortunately for anyone who took the time and purchased their tickets in advance on the National Park's website, all you had to do was go to the Information Counter and pick up your tickets there, that sure saved us a lot of time.

GARDEN OF EDEN TOUR IN WIND CAVE

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There's those pesky elevators that caused our return trip to South Dakota!
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At the bottom of the elevator ride is this entrance to the cave.
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Wind Cave doesn't have all the usual formations we're used to seeing in a cave.
What they do have is 90% of all the Boxwork formation known to exist is the world.
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This cave popcorn is familiar to us, we see it everywhere.
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Here is some more of the very delicate Boxwork formations.
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This is Flowstone, another familiar formation to us.
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Here the Boxwork looked like a bunch of dried leaves glued to the ceiling.
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Before 1903, when Wind Cave became a National Park,
visitors were permitted to sign their names on the cave walls. Not anymore!
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Once back outside we took the time to walk down to the Natural Entrance of the cave.
The sign explains how the Dakota Nation people believe they were "birthed" at this site.
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The tribe members return to this sacred site and tie prayer ribbons on the trees.
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This tiny 18" hole in the ground is the original entrance to the cave
and where the Dakota Nation believes they were birthed into the world above ground.

When we were looking around the gift shop we didn't understand why all the merchandise depicted bison on them and not the cave? This is Wind Cave National Park afterall!

When we left the parking lot we exited out the back instead of going straight back to the campground and found our answer.

There was a small herd of bison grazing in a grassy prairie just yards from the parking lot.

Here's a proud mother and her recently born calf.

Are you wondering what this big guy is doing?

Well, he's just scratching his back of course!

The herd was no where near the size we saw leaving Yellowstone last week,
but I'll bet the herd numbers over 100 from what we saw today.

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