Happy Trails 2: Jewel Cave and a Herd of Buffalo. Custer, SD

Well what can you say? The day got off to a bad start. I went to the comfort station for a shower and as I pulled the handle on one of the "unoccupied" shower rooms i came face to face with full frontal eastern european male.... it happens... i suppose. A cold shower and half a bagel later we were on our way to Jewel Cave. We got our tickets for the 1.5 hour tour of the cave but we had about an hour and 45 minutes to kill before we got to go on the tour so we drove back into Custer and did some shopping at the local store for snacks and bottled water. Custer is literally like one of those wild west looking one street towns. Its like stepping back in time. While at the store I got a call on my cell phone from the State Game Lodge and to make a long story short, I goofed, there was about 3 hours of chaos, soul searching and self deprecation - but it all worked out in the end. Back to Jewel Cave. At 317 feet below the surface, a constant 49 degrees and over 182 miles long, Jewel Cave is an impressive display of inner earths beauty. The 1/2 mile tour over 700 stair steps was a great way to see the cave. The most impressive part was that it was discovered in the late 1800's and even today they are still adding milage to the survey. After the cave tour we drove to the State Game Lodge in Custer State Park. The park itself is very gorgeous. Amazing that this is only a state park. After checking into our cabin, which is freshly built and we are pretty sure we are the inaugural occupants, we went for a drive in search of Buffalo. (Tatanka!!) We intended to drive the Wildlife Driving Loop in the park but we missed the turn and ended up staying on Route 16 that runs through the park. As I looked for a spot to turn around we ended up in a buffalo traffic jam. Literally - walking down the highway the herd was on the move! it was a fortunate miss of a turn that gave us this amazing close encounter. We had a 5:00pm dinner reservation in the State Game Lodge which was built in the 1920's and served as the summer White House for president Calvin Coolidge. The highlight of the menu was - of course - buffalo steaks. Dinner was really good and was a nice change from the meals at the RV. The peach apricot bread pudding for dessert was really good! After dinner we went back to the cabin and settled in. What started out as bad sights and cold water - ended with breathtaking scenery and the chill of a cave 30 stories down. What a day!