I started my trip by flying in to Denver, Colorado grabbing my rental car, then making the 4.5 hour drive to South Dakota. This was my first time in the state, so I’ve officially crossed another off my list.
As I was driving in to the campground, I got my first look at a bison. He took me off guard because he was just hanging out right by the campground entrance! I pulled over and snapped a few photos. There will be no shortage of pictures of bison from this whole trip – but I have to commemorate my first 🙂 Also I didn’t realize they were so fuzzy on the front and smooth on the back! You can see the muscles near his hind legs. Good reminder not to get too close…along with those big horns.
I was able to do make it for the last natural entrance tour of the day at 4:30. Here I am following the ranger back to the cave entrance. 
This cave is massive. It was also the first cave to be designated as a national park! Here the ranger is putting the ribbon over the tiny natural entrance to see if the cave was breathing in or out.
Above is the natural entrance. Needless to say we went through a different door. Below we are inside the cave. It was very cool! It was interesting to see how much was similar and how much was different between all the other caves I’ve been in.
Here is some box-work. This was my first time seeing this formation! It is apparently named after mail boxes. This cave contains 95% of the world’s known box-work formations. And I THINK a lot of the rest of it is nearby in another state park cave.
Once we got out of the cave I went exploring around the grounds, and heard this high pitched noise. I pulled over and realized the entire area was FILLED with thousands of prairie dogs. I couldn’t help but snap a few pics.
Then I caught site of someone looking for dinner! The prairie dogs were surprisingly wily though! I sat and ate my dinner and watched these two coyotes (?) hunt them and I didn’t see them catch a single one! Perhaps they were just warming up.
A few more shots of some Bison grazing around the park grounds.
This park was very cool – while I am not sure when I will need to be back in South Dakota, it was well worth the drive to visit once! I got a few great shots just as I was leaving to go back to my campground. This is one of my favorites!
Kelsey's Climb to 59 (+4) 