The Eye of the Needle

To drive the scenic Needle Highway you have to buy a $10 ticket. We did and there were some impressive granite rock formations. The best two shown here. After that there's just a lot of trees and typical mountain scenery. A bit further down the road you have a chance to journey down the "wild life loop" (if you've bought a ticket). We did that too.

We didn't see any wild life for a while. It rained a bit --which made us feel better about deciding not to stay at the Rushmore Monument. Suddenly the wife saw a bird! I missed it because I was busy reading the brochure describing all the animals we might see.

To be fair it also told us the best chances of seeing animals were morning and evening, not I gather 12:45pm.

We saw a few antelope, one donkey and way off in the distance a score of bison.