Black Hills - Mammoth Site & Wind Cave National Park- Rose's viewpoint

May 30^th – Cloudy with slight chance of rain but everything is soooo muddy—so decided let’s go visit a few inside places on our list. So off to Hot Springs  SD to the Mammoth Site- there are 58 ½ (don’t ask me)  mammoth remains- some wooly mammoths and others a larger mammoth breed  (yea- there really were mammoths bigger than the wooly guy.)  Fascinating- they’ve been excavating here for decades and they say it’ll take another 20-30 years.  All these mammoths went into a spring area that became a sinkhole and then couldn’t get out-- in contrast FL just takes houses and cars- how boring –lol.  After our pre-historic education we headed off to Wind Cave National Park – 4^th largest cave system in the world. Now here’s the amazing part,  only 137 cave miles have been discovered and the scientists predict this is only 5%  -- this is a seriously large cave system.  We took the Fairgrounds Cave tour – only covers ½ mile but the kicker –there’s 450 steps—at one point 90 steps up—whew!!!  I made prior arrangements for the biggest guy  (at least 6’2” and 300 pounds) on the tour to push me up the stairs—smart huh.  We took a drive through Wind Cave National Preserve on the way back.  Beautiful twisty,  turny,  up and down drive with marvelous rock formations that you either looked up to or down on—not to mention the one lane bridges to cross.  After just a few miles came across 9 bison- beside and on the road- of course stopping traffic  (all three cars.)  After about 10 minutes all the bison finished crossing the road (believe me no one was rushing these big boys) and onward we went.  Not sure how many deer and buffalo we saw- but can say that the song—home,  home on the range where the deer and the buffalo roam—had to be about South Dakota.