Black Hills, Day Three Part One: Wildlife Loop

Day 3, wildlife loop road!  How excited am I?  We've seen no animals, besides deer (which make me an absolute wreck while driving) - so I'm hoping for BIG things here!

This road was probably one of the highlights of the trip for me - for many reasons.  Mostly because we actually had a chance to see animals!

So we're driving and I'm all baby.. just so you know when we finally see a buffalo, I'm probably going to be so excited that I might hit you.. just so you know.  So off in the distance we see a buffalo, it was WAY back up in the woods... so it's not very exciting, but it is a buffalo, so I guess we can cross it off the list.  

We continue down this kind of windy road and up around the corner we see this monster!

The thing is fricken HUGE... I hit Steve.  I hit Steve some more as we pull up closer.  This little guy (little, my ass) was just hanging out on the side of the road.  I was so excited that I grabbed my camera and in the end wasn't even sure if I got him in any shots!  Steve looked and assured me that I had.

So driving some more we come to this huge field of more buffalo... as we are driving closer to it, we see some buffalo crossing the road and just off to the side of the road.  Now, I'm driving so Steve just grabs my camera and starts snapping pictures.  He got this guy as he was running off away from us.

The field of buff's... and me excited to be pictured with them!

This guy is called... a pronghorn antelope.  We came across many of these.. none of which ran out into the road like a deer might.  They are forever known as my friend.

Here is the super highlight, as if the buffalo weren't enough, right?!  We are driving and see all these damn donkey's {aka burro's}... they are all over and all up in the middle of the road.  I laugh.  Steve laughs.  They don't move!  They walk in your way and approach your car.. and LICK you!  I panicked and rolled up my window because I didn't want to be licked by these things.  Once we made it past them, we'd look at every car driving the other direction and think they have no idea what they are in store for... not to mention the motorcycles that were heading towards them with girls on the back and no helmets.  Many jokes and stories were happening in my car about how these girl were going to freak out when they got licked by these creatures.  In all.. it was pretty funny!  Here are some pictures:

Not to mention all sorts of burro poop in the road:

So, as we are driving, with the windows down I get hit in the head by something.  The girl in me freaks the fuck out, pulls the car over, jumps out all while Steve is looking at me thinking "wtf?!"  I explain that something pelted me in the head and I want to make sure it wasn't a bee or something and that it's out of my car!  I don't see anything in the backseat, nothing in my seat, nothing anywhere... until I look down to put my car in gear... YUCK!  This is the little bastard that hit me in the head... so I ask Steve to kindly get it the hell out of my car... as it's still alive and moving.  It ends up getting trapped inside my shifter area, under the part that moves.  So we he pushes the little plastic piece down and the little bastard crawls out.  {ugh, gives me the chills just thinking about it}... FINALLY, after what felt like 20 minutes of messing with this asshole, Steve gets him and smashes the fuck out of him!

Bastard Bug (click to enlarge, if you dare):

 My face while Steve is catering to my needs and trying to capture him:

Up next: Rushmore!

What you've missed:

The Road There

Devil's Tower

Needles Highway and Crazy Horse