South Dakota: Day 4

On day 4, we headed south. Dr. S is quite the knitter (and I only encourage it), so when we read the town of Hot Springs had a knitting shop, we had to go. We made a day of it with other members of my family (also containing some knitters).

The drive to Hot Springs was much more exciting than we expected. While it eventually went onto a more traveled highway, it first meandered through woods and rolling prairie. As we discovered, this area of prairie had many more bison than any parts of the Wildlife Loop. Hundreds of them. Day already made.

Upon getting into town, we found that the knitting shop shared a building with a local artisan market. We all poked around in there for a bit and bought fun more meaningful souvenirs of the trip or presents for family members. If possible, Dr. S and I like finding Christmas ornaments on bigger trips. Mission successful.

When we finally made it next door to the knitting shop, our day was made - and so was the day of the woman working there that day. She really was a hoot and she enjoyed having us there - a group of passionate knitters and/or those that enable it. We probably also made her day on the sales front as well. For our part, Dr. S but a few skeins of yarn, one of which being a bison (wool?) blend. This will eventually be made into a winter neck gaiter for me.

After spending a looong time in the shop, we were all starving. We couldn’t find the restaurant that was recommended to us by the knitting shop employee, so we just hit up the local Dairy Queen. From the large group of local older men, the full parking lot, and the amount of traffic going in and out the door, you could tell this was the place to go in town for grub. A burger, fries, and an Oreo blizzard really hit the spot. Additionally, I can’t really think of a nicer Dairy Queen I’ve been to in a long time.

Next up was the Mammoth Site. This is a museum and ongoing dig site of mostly wooly mammoths. At current count, 61 mammoth skeletons have been discovered. As best they can, they leave the skeletons in the ground where they find them (a building has been built around the dig), making the site the largest in-situ collection of mammoth skeletons in the world. While the museum and are crazy young tour guide were a little hokey, the dig site was quite impressive. It’s not everyday you are able to see that many woolly… er I mean Columbian mammoth bones. 

It was getting to be late in the afternoon (mostly because we spent so much time at the knitting shop), but we had another stop to make on our way back to the lodge. Back through the prairie again, this time stopping to take in the thousands of prairie dogs. We stopped a few times for pictures, typically being able to hear their squeaking. Eventually we made it to our last destination of the day, our third fire lookout of the trip - Rankin Ridge. It was a quick drive and then a short hike up to the only fire lookout of the three we visited that was an actual tower. Like the Mt. Coolidge lookout, we couldn’t climb up and go inside, but we could at least take in the views from ground level.

Prairie dog hills, as far as the eye can see.

We hopped back in our cars for what we thought would be a quick drive to the lodge. Nature however had other ideas. First we spied a small group of pronghorn grazing. Then we spied a family of burrowing owls (I disappointingly only got a quick glimpse because I was driving.) Then the bison took over. That large herd we saw by the road earlier in the day? Their numbers seemed to have increased… and now they were on the road. We just settled in, took all the pictures we could, and slowly inched our car through the herd. The best moment was when we were distracted watching a mother and a calf on the right side of our car, only to be surprised by a giant bull walking past us on the left, nearly grazing the car.

We were late for family dinner, but it was definitely worth it.