Monday morning we work up to a gorgeous South Dakota sunrise and parted ways temporarily with our friends at Chris’ Camp to prepare for our wedding on Tuesday. The burn I discovered on my leg the day before had now blistered, so my wedding outfit would now include a bandage. This slight mishap had also earned me the nickname Hot Leg. Nice.
Today we had reserved for getting the marriage license at the Custer County Courthouse and meeting the pastor who would be marrying us. After getting our license, ($40, photo ID, thank you, have a nice day!) we met Chuck Landon and his wife Phyllis at Pizza Works, a nice little pizza place which was just across from the courthouse in downtown Custer. They arrived, an older couple, dressed in jeans and Harley Davidson t-shirts, having just come from serving a biker breakfast at a local church. They had also come out west from Michigan, in the Lansing area, and had fallen in love with South Dakota. I told them about our property investment here in Buffalo and how here it just felt like home. Chuck looked at Phyllis and smiled.
After lunch, we checked into our cabin at the Blue Bell Lodge, a gorgeous place nestled on Highway 87 in Custer State Park. Our wedding would take place at their outdoor chapel next to the lodge, the reception at the White Buffalo room on the other side. Our box of wedding attire had arrived, though the box looked like it had been drop kicked all the way from Michigan, luckily it was just clothes, jewelry and an iron.
We checked into our housekeeping cabin across the street (awesome!) and I spent some time outside taking pictures of this beautiful place, and the wildlife that surrounded it. A rabbit hopped across the yard right up our driveway to us, a deer with fuzz still on his antlers was spotted in our neighbors backyard not fifty feet away, and a bit later, about a dozen turkeys made their way down the hill and past our cabin.
We walked across the highway to the lodge for our last dinner as single people, and as we made our way back, a safari jeep passed us on the road. Bill said, “Oh, its one of those touring jeeps that will take you out to see the buffalo.” I stopped in my tracks. “Like that one?” I replied. Not thirty feet in front of us was a buffalo standing right in our path. They aren’t uncommon, here, I knew that. But to stumble upon one this close, be prepared to quietly put it in reverse. Unfortunately I was unable to get any good pictures of him as it was getting dark. Luckily we were in the parking lot of the general store, so we went inside to kill some time and let the dude move along, which he eventually did.
We then spent the evening ironing our clothes for the next day and turned in early, after painting my toes and tending to the bandage on my leg.
About 3am I’m awakened by scratching noises, trying to ignore it at first as I was sure it was just a raccoon outside. But it continued on, and soon it sounded like it was in the room. I finally woke up Bill (yeah, like I was going to go investigate something the sounded like it was in the cabin with us??) who flipped on the light and searched every corner. Nothing. It was then we heard the grunting from outside, a sound we had heard before. Buffalo. Outside the cabin. We switched the lights back off and went to the windows, but were unable to see anything. They must have been on their way because the sound stopped after a while. I wish the raccoon would have followed their lead, though. In addition to my excitement and nervousness, our four legged friend kept me up most of the night.
Is there any chance that you might know the name of the place that you have captioned as The Cabin? You refer to it as the housekeeping cabin across the street. My husband said that he saw this same cabin years ago when he had travelled to Custer Park. He was sorry that he never noted the name of the place. We are taking a trip out West this summer and we would love to stay there. If you can help us out please let me know. Thanks. Jamie
Hi Jamie! Thanks for reading. 🙂 The cabin is a part of the Blue Bell Lodge (link and photo are above in the post). The main lodge has a restaurant and banquet room and across the street are the rental housekeeping cabins. We loved it there!