Black Hills, Iron Mountains and buffalo with attitude

I'm on an Amtrak Train, the Lake Shore Limited - No 48 for the next 6 hours (or more depending on delays which apparently are "inevitable".
It has better wi-fi than most of the hotels we have been staying in so I am going to catch you up the last few days of our road trip.

We left the Mount Rushmore area and drove through the Black Hills National Forest, on the Iron Mountain road, on the recommendation of some people we chatted to at breakfast. It was a very non-direct route to our destination for the evening but very worth it.

We'd seen T-shirts with "I survived the drive" on listing all the bridges and curves and tunnels of the Iron Mountain Dr but didn't understand them until we actually drove the route. You have to remember most people round here are driving pick up truck size vehicles and you don't see many minis or Fiat 500s so narrow roads take on a lot more significance than to us Brits who are used to the twisty lanes of Cornwall or the Lake District (or even West Kirby near where I live!).

I don't have any photos of the drive as there was nowhere to pull in and stop for photos or to admire the view - that in itself tells you how unusual a road it is as there are always seem to be pull ins somewhere along the road. I do have a photo which I took on the one occasion we did stop - a stop that was due to buffalo in the road!

At the overlook below you could see Mount Rushmore in the distance

We then came to Custer State park which was a bit like aa cross between a public park and safari park (so for people who live near me Birkenhead Park and Knowsley) with no enclosures and all the animals just roaming around. It had a wildlife drive where they said you had the best chance of seeing  bison but we didn't.....that is until we asked Mildred (that's what I called our sat-nav) to get us to our final destination via the shortest route. She took us across the centre of Custer Park on a dirt track passing a bison farm on the way which is where we saw the baby buffalo -aaaaah!

We spent the night in Wheatland and set off the next day for The Rockies. You access them via Roosevelt National Forest which, as you can see, is beautiful in it's own right.

and all that before you even get to the Rockies!

Top tips.

Today I have one major top tip - learned the hard way!

When you book in to a hotel and get to the room, check if there is a radio / clock alarm on the bedside table. If there is - check the alarm IS NOT SET - if it is - SWITCH IT OFF!

We didn't do this and on the morning we were going to The Rockies the alarm in our room went off at 06:00 - in our sleepy panic we thought we switched it off but oh no - we'd just hit snooze and had to go through the whole thing again 9 minutes later - aaaargh. We were not happy campers that day :-(

Next up The Rockies - you might want to go grab a Coors Light ;-)