The Breeze: Mt. Rushmore and Bear Country, South Dakota

The day after we went to Deadwood, we once again, hit the road for more sightseeing. We wanted to go to Mt Rushmore and see it up close and planned to stop by “Bear Country” on the way back.

Mt Rushmore is about 40 miles from us, so it didn’t take long to get there. Here are a few shots of the trip up there, including the pretty clouds, and the first glimpses of the monument.

Once we got to the memorial park and found a parking place, we didn’t waste any time getting to the mountain.

Wow, what an impressive sight! I recommend this place to anybody that hasn’t seen it up close and personal.

There is a museum on-site and also short films about how and when the monument was built. We spent quite a while looking and watching. Great place! And we want to go back for the evening ceremony when they light the monument. Can’t wait to see that!

From there, we wound our way back to “Bear Country”, which is a great place to go also. It’s a drive-thru wildlife exhibit that takes about 45 minutes to drive, ending with “Baby Land” which is a walk-thru exhibit.

Here are a few shots of what we saw during the drive-thru. First, there were Rocky Mountain Elk.

Then were the Artic Wolves.

Big Horn and Dall Sheep:

The Rocky Mountain Goat:

The Mountain Lion:

The Timber Wolf:

LOTS of black bears and grizzlies:

And, of course, Buffalo:

The drive-thru was impressive, but let me tell ya, Baby Land was GREAT! Why? Because we got to watch bear cubs playing and they were SOOOOO CUTE!!!

Anyway, I’ll share some of the many pictures we took there, as well. They weren’t all “babies”, but several different species of animals. Some were lounging in their various shelters and some were fast asleep, so I didn’t get pictures of everything. I’ll save the bear cub pics for last.

Baby Land was beautiful!

Here are the Badgers…

The Skunks…

The Raccoon….

The Lynx….

The Red Fox….

And the Pea Fowl that wandered freely…..

And finally….(drum roll please)…the bear cubs! Notice the little white one never stopped running and chasing the other cubs. I got tired just watching the little cutie! And the one that climbed the tree was such a comical little character.

I could have stood and watched these little guys all day, but it was beginning to sprinkle, so we had to rush on out of the park before the rain came down in buckets. But not before I got a couple more shots of just how pretty the park was.

Wow, we barely made it back to the truck before the rain was really coming down. And on the way home, I just had to get pictures of the clouds. Beautiful!