This Took Awhile
We drove the Needles Scenic Highway, Iron Mountain Road, and the Wildlife Loop in Custer State Park. The Needles Highway winds among towering granite spires, while Iron Mountain Road seems almost designed for photographers, with pigtail bridges, tight switchbacks, and tunnels that frame Mt. Rushmore like a picture.
Needles Highway (SD 87) is famous for its granite spires (“the needles”), many of which rise hundreds of feet above the surrounding forest. The granite weathered into tall, narrow pinnacles that resemble sewing needles. Early travelers thought they looked like giant needles sticking out of the hills and the name stuck. The road was completed in 1922 and was intentionally routed through the narrow gaps between these formations, which is why there are several one-lane tunnels that barely accommodate modern vehicles.
Iron Mountain Road (US 16A) was engineered like a scenic experience. It contains: 314 curves, 14 switchbacks, three “pigtail” bridges, and tunnels purposely aligned so that Mt. Rushmore appears framed in the opening as you approach.
I put together some video of driving through the tunnels and the needles. When we got to the Wildlife Loop, a herd of bison was blocking the road. Traffic came to a complete stop while the herd kept trying to determine what side of the road they wanted to be on or should they stay in the middle. About twenty minutes later the cars and motorcycles managed to find a path through the herd which sometimes got closed off and another path needed to be found. There were quite a few motorcycles on the road and it would be scary to me to be on a motorcycle while attempting to get by a herd of bison who were often interacting with each other. One motorcycle cut its engine and coasted downhill once he found a path. It worked for him. The motorcycles going in our direction did not have that option since they were going uphill. Once we were able to make our way down the road, I was able to video some of the bison in slow motion which is included in the video. The end of the video is us coming through one of the tunnels where you can see Mt. Rushmore in the distance and that is where the video ends.
After we got past the bison and we were rolling along without windows open, I began to hear a sound that did not fit the environment. I was concerned there was something wrong with the truck. I asked Regis if he knew what it was and he said “Yeah, the motorcycle behind us just turned its radio on and The Rolling Stones are playing.”
We also noticed a surprising number of ponderosa pines with shattered tops or the tops had broken off. It is possible that heavy snow/ice had broken them, but some looked more like lightning strikes. Lightning superheats the sap, turning it to steam almost instantly. The expanding steam literally blows the trunk apart. Ponderosa pines in the Black Hills are struck fairly often because they are among the tallest objects on ridges. Heavy snow or ice usually bends or snaps trees over rather than leaving that jagged explosion at the top. We saw many trees toppled with their roots exposed while most of the other trees had their tops snapped off. It appears to be a difficult place to be a tree.
Different Day, Different Experience
I always mark the full moon on my calendar which was July 29 hoping for the perfect moonrise photograph. With the dramatic Badlands as a backdrop, I imagined a memorable image. Instead, the weather called for heavy thunderstorms and the clouds rolled through. We headed into the park anyway, hoping for a break in the clouds or perhaps some wildlife. When the sky grew increasingly ominous, we reluctantly turned back before the rain arrived. The moon never appeared to us, but the storms brought a decrease in the temperature which was greatly appreciated.
This morning, I suggested to Regis we recreate our successful wildlife loop through the park but skip the overlooks so we could focus more on the wildlife. The skies were amazing making me reconsider that decision, but I hung in there. To do justice to a place like this, you would have to stay at least a year and go in all seasons and different light to capture the amazing landscape.
We expected a similar wildlife day to the day before, but we had a different experience. Yesterday we saw only two bison. Today there were hundreds. I have no idea where they were hiding. We watched red-colored calves—appropriately nicknamed “red dogs”—nursing while their mothers grazed. Clover and Raven were fascinated. They started to bark but were quickly reminded of the rules. The barking turned into pitiful whining instead, especially from Clover.
There were abundant sightings of mule deer and I was delighted to see male mule deer with velvet covered antlers and a mother and her fawn. Antlers are covered in velvet as they grow back after being shed after mating season in the fall. The velvet supplies blood and nutrients to the growing antlers. Later in the summer the velvet dries and is rubbed off, revealing the hardened antlers that will be used during the fall rut. As for the little fawn, it still had its spots. The spots help camouflage the baby.
We had the most delightful experience of coming across a couple of ewes with their lambs. One lamb seemed to have endless energy. Between bouts of scratching, it launched itself into the air and twisted in ways that hardly seemed possible. Watching it bounce effortlessly made it easy to understand how these young sheep eventually learn to navigate the cliffs that protect them from predators.
While searching for burrowing owls, we saw numbers of horned larks and upland sandpipers foraging through the prairie dog communities. We did not see any burrowing owls but the other birds were more than enough compensation and made us forget about the owls.
There was a male pronghorn lying down in the middle of a prairie dog town. When we stopped the truck, the pronghorn lazily looked in our direction.
We have been so fortunate with our wildlife sightings that I made the unusual request to the powers above to let me see a coyote. If I was unable to see one, I would have been content with everything we saw. I figured it did not hurt to ask. A few minutes later, my wish was granted.
Back at the trailer, an Apache jumping spider was waiting on the door. I couldn’t bring myself to go inside until I’d photographed it.
Wildlife in the Badlands
We entered the park before sunrise hoping to catch the first light. Once the sun was up, our attention shifted from the landscape to the wildlife. Every few minutes there was something new to discover.
The pronghorns seemed to be everywhere. We saw a beautiful male with a big set of horns and my favorite was a mother with her two fawns. A pronghorn fawn can lie motionless for days while its mother feeds nearby. Its lack of scent helps keep predators from finding it. These fawns were clearly older.
Prairie dog towns buzzed with activity. We know to look for burrowing owls in prairie dog towns. Burrowing owls are one of the few owl species that nest underground, often taking over abandoned prairie dog or ground squirrel burrows rather than digging their own. Regis spotted the first owls. Many of them were sleeping but I found at least one awake.
We stopped so I could take a picture of some sunflowers and a bighorn ewe unexpectedly wandered into the photograph. Regis yelled, “hey look, she’s photobombing your photo.” On most of our adventures, we rarely get to see older male bighorn sheep. Today we got lucky.
We saw several prairie rattlesnakes that had been hit on the road. One was so fresh that even its rattle was still moving in the breeze, making us do a double take. Prairie rattlesnakes don’t deliberately rattle at every threat. Remaining still and relying on camouflage is usually their first line of defense.
Just outside the park, five common nighthawks were flying in broad daylight. Despite their name, common nighthawks are not hawks. They are members of the nightjar family and spend much of their time catching flying insects on the wing. I have only ever seen one during the day.
Mourning doves were everywhere and we flushed them regularly from the vegetation at the side of the road when we drove by. Mourning doves can drink by continuously sucking water into their mouths, something surprisingly few birds can do. Most birds have to tilt their heads back after each sip.
We also saw many young meadowlarks in the vegetation by the side of the road. I never saw them until they flushed when we got near. Young meadowlarks leave the nest before they are strong fliers and spend several weeks hidden in the grass while their parents continue feeding them which is probably why I never saw them until they moved.
Chasing the Morning Light
We woke up at 4:30 and there was already light in the sky. I wanted to get into the park before the sun rose and we were already late. On the way out of the campground, the moon was setting and it was blood red. By the time we got in a place to get a picture, it was too late. But, the sun rose shortly after and it was blood red. Was the sun so red because of wildfire smoke? The only time I’ve seen the sun this red was in Washington State when there was smoke from wildfires. Whatever the cause, the morning felt different. It is nice to simply be there when the landscape wakes up.
The Badlands are one of those places that refuse to fit inside a camera frame. A telephoto compresses the ridges. A wide-angle makes everything seem farther away. The eye sees depth that a photograph struggles to reproduce. I like using the telephoto lens for landscape shots because of the compression, so I stitched together 4–10 images to get a little closer to what it actually felt like standing there. I usually flipped the camera vertically which is why I needed to stitch so many pictures together.
The colorful layers of the Badlands represent a different ancient environment—river floodplains, volcanic ash falls, forests, and swamps—preserved over millions of years. Reading the cliffs is like reading pages in Earth’s history book. The lack of significant vegetation allows us to read those layers. But, the Badlands are disappearing. Rain, wind, and winter freeze-thaw cycles erode the landscape by about an inch each year. The dramatic formations we admire today are temporary on a geologic timescale.
Arriving in the Badlands
After a week of driving across the country (1,882 miles), we finally reached Badlands National Park. We were tired enough that after setting up camp and taking care of the dogs, an afternoon nap sounded like a better idea than sightseeing. After dinner, we decided to head into the park. The light wasn’t great for photography, but it didn’t matter. I was eager to see what the park had in store. I only got one landscape photo worth keeping, but sometimes that’s enough. The first evening was less about the photographs than becoming acquainted with a place I love.
Our first wildlife sighting was a group of pronghorns. Then, we saw prairie dogs. Lots of prairie dogs. Scientific estimates place the population somewhere between “more than I can count” and “everywhere I looked.”
I was satisfied with the prairie dogs and the pronghorns but on the way back to the campground, we saw mule deer, a white-tailed jack rabbit and a red-tailed hawk.
Little Camels
Since arriving in South Dakota, the dogs have started drinking even more water than usual. Last night I heard them getting up several times for a drink. Around the middle of the night, Clover let me know she needed to go outside. I took both dogs out. Raven did his usual quick stop, while Clover headed straight for the first patch of grass and immediately relieved herself. I’ve started calling them my little camels.
We thought we had timed everything perfectly to arrive at our next campground right at check-in. Then, after we’d been on the road for a while, Regis realized we were about to cross into Mountain Time. Suddenly we had an unexpected extra hour to fill, so we pulled into Mitchell to visit the Corn Palace. We took silly pictures of the dogs in town. In one photo, there was a Goodyear Tire place with huge tires and I took a photo with the dogs in front of them. It helps to get an idea of how big those tires are with the dogs in the frame.
The Corn Palace is redecorated every year with completely new murals made from naturally colored ears of corn and other grains. Artists create new designs annually, and local crews attach hundreds of thousands of pieces of corn by hand. It’s one of the few buildings in the world whose exterior artwork is essentially rebuilt every year. The first Corn Palace opened in 1892 as a way to celebrate the region’s agricultural success and encourage people to settle in southeastern South Dakota.
As we proceeded west we saw lots of sunflowers. There was one stretch where sunflowers covered the landscape as far as we could see. If there had been any safe way to pull over and admire them at 0 mph instead of 70 mph, we would have.
Road Trip Moments
Physicists talk about quantum entanglement. I have my own version: if you lay two dog leashes next to each other, they will immediately become entangled.
Every time we walk past the fire pit at our campsite, Clover has to inspect it. There aren’t any cigarette butts in it, but she seems convinced that could change at any moment. Hope springs eternal.
Barn Swallows Nesting
Regis noticed barn swallows nesting under a porch in the campground. While he did all the work to ready the trailer to leave, I took pictures of the barn swallows. I could not stay long because I realized that I was impacting their behavior but I was able to witness them feeding their young and displaying their aerial maneuverability.
Barn swallows are incredible fliers and spend much of the day catching insects on the wing. They can make sharp turns and quick dives that look almost effortless. They build their nests with mud which can contain hundreds to over a thousand tiny mud pellets, each carried individually in the bird’s bill. Male and female both feed the chicks, making hundreds of trips each day once the babies hatch. Adults often come back to the&nb sp;same nesting site year after year, sometimes even the same nest if it’s still intact. Their deeply forked tail streamers help with agility in flight. Barn swallows are among the world’s most widespread birds. North American birds spend the winter as far south as Central and South America before returning north each spring. Their diet includes insects and a single family consumes an astonishing number of insects over a nesting season. They have adapted to humans. Before barns existed, they nested on cliffs and caves. Today, porches, bridges, barns, and culverts have become favorite nesting sites.
While the swallows busied themselves with raising a family, Regis busied himself getting us ready to leave, and I busied myself photographing wildlife behavior. When I returned in time to realize Regis had just about finished, I was able to photograph this insect on the side of the trailer before putting the camera away temporarily.
We traveled 311 miles today which seemed particularly long for all of us. Every stop was hot and miserable with little shade. Movement caught my eye at a few stops where, at first glance, it looked like a patch of damp dirt. Then, the wings caught the light and I realized insects, butterflies, and skippers were gathered there to obtain the precious moisture in the soil. My favorite was this painted lady butterfly.
In the evenings, I have started to plan our return trip from Washington. If I ask Regis his opinion on places we should go on the way back, he has no opinion. But, he may nix any ideas I pose. For example, he does not want to retrace our steps on the way back. I asked if he wanted to go through California and he said no. Otherwise, he goes with the flow. He has always been like this. We have done 5 or 6 cross country trips in the US and Canada and I plan everything. After we pack up our campsite and get in the car to head to the next destination, he asks for the address/coordinates to plug into the GPS. That is when he knows where we are going for the day. I admire his ability to be so cool about it and not care. He and the dogs are my laid back companion travelers.
Wicked Hot
It was hot when we arrived in St. Charles yesterday. Today, in Jefferson City, “hot” wasn’t nearly a strong enough word. Our thermometer read 102 degrees, and with the humidity the heat index was 113. The moment you stepped outside, it felt like opening an oven door. The saving grace is our new trailer. Our 2016 motorhome never handled extreme temperatures particularly well, but this 2026 Jayco Jay Feather has been a pleasant surprise. Once we’re inside, it’s cool and comfortable. I want to be outside because it is beautiful and we are under trees that provide shade, but it is still too hot. In our hometown of St. Augustine, Florida it was in the 80’s today. I was hoping to escape the heat and get the dogs to a cooler location. Today, I did not achieve that goal. Hopefully, I will as we head further north and west.
Once again, we are camped near a pond with lots of dragonfly activity. If I thought Georgia was too hot to get out of the shade to take pictures, Missouri has somehow managed to outdo Georgia.
As for the dogs, they are behaving well. Today, I bought a bag of Fritos when we gassed up prior to arriving at our campground. By then the dogs had spent nearly 300 miles in the truck. The instant I opened the bag, two collie heads appeared between the seats. Apparently boredom and the sound of a crinkly snack bag are enough to suspend all normal travel etiquette.
As soon as Clover had the opportunity in our current campsite, she headed to the fire pit to check it out. I’m sure she remembers the cigarette butts in a prior fire pit.
Finding Their Road Trip Rhythm
The first few days of our trips are when routines are invented—not just for us, but for dogs. Once Clover relaxed enough to understand that this wasn’t just another outing, her real personality reappeared.
The first sign that Clover wasn’t completely convinced about this whole adventure was not obvious unless you knew her well. She seemed perfectly happy, but every time we stopped she refused to do her business. Raven, on the other hand, treated every rest stop like a NASCAR pit stop—out, done, and back in the truck.
Once Clover decided this road trip was her new normal, another familiar behavior returned. She slowly expanded until she occupied approximately 97% of the back seat, leaving Raven—who is noticeably larger—to negotiate for the remaining 3%.
Mealtime has required its own diplomacy. Clover has never believed Raven should be allowed to eat if she can help it. We’ve developed a serving order that keeps the peace, but I made the mistake of bringing bowls without rubber bottoms. They slide across the trailer like hockey pucks. This has the potential for ruining the peace.
Interestingly, the dogs will happily drink from the same water bowl together. Apparently sharing water is acceptable. Sharing personal space is another matter unless Clover is in the right mood. Raven adores her in spite of her sometimes intolerant behavior towards him.
Road Trip Moments
Every campground presents its own challenges. One had goose poop. Another had cigarette butts scattered through the fire ring. If there is anything Clover likes to eat better than goose poop, it’s cigarette butts. Fortunately, I realized her interest in the fire pit soon enough to prevent her from becoming the campground’s volunteer litter cleanup crew.
Raven and Clover Enjoying the Grass
We have covered almost 700 miles on our trip to Washington. We arrived to a campsite surrounded by grass and somewhat cooler weather. The long days in the truck, cooler weather and green grass culminated in the dogs having a joyful romp at our campsite. They made tremendous noise playing with each other. We kept trying to quiet them but they were too exuberant. They rolled in the grass with enthusiasm. They were a joy to watch. They love playing in the grass.
While the dogs were sleeping after their romp, I attempted to get some pictures of the indigo buntings hanging around the campground and singing. Fortunately, I found a couple of them on the power lines belting out their song. I also found some cool bugs.
I am pretty sure the cooler weather is a result of Regis buying all those shorts and t-shirts. I think we will wind up in a snow storm within the next couple of days. Maybe not, but the break in the heat is appreciated.
Linda Burek Photography 