September 8, 2017 Hot Springs, South Dakota

We started out by going to the Mammoth site. Approximately 26,000 years old, the site has one of the largest concentrations of Columbian mammoth bones discovered to date. Believed to have  been a sinkhole fed by springs, it is the only in-situ (left as found) site for mammoth bones in America Mammoths, giant short-faced bears and other animals entered the pond, became trapped as a result of the slippery, steep banks and died of starvation.

John standing under a wooly mammoth skeleton. The wooly is smaller than the columbian mammoths. There were three wooly's found here and 68 columbian's found so far here. Some silly photos seen in the children's area.

Our tour guide Jace above part of the site. Below is a whole skeleton, minus the head. They named this one Marie Antoinette until the discovered it was a male, so it is now Murry Antoinette.

More bones, there are two whole heads with tusks in this. The lower photo is the giant short-faced bear. They found one here. It is twice the size of a grizzly bear.

John-posing as a caveman  inside a shelter made from mammoth bones. These were found mainly in Siberia, not this area. After the Mammoths we went to Hwy 79 brewery. John is here with his Hwy 79 Hop spring IPA. The beer was good, the food was marginal.

In Hot Springs-Chubby People are hard to kidnap, eat lots here, two welcome to Hot Springs signs, the Road Virus bookmobile and a cool house on the bluff. Most of downtown Hot Springs is built from this red sand stone. The top building was a veterans sanitarium built around the springs. It is now a veterans hospital, there is also a large veterans home in town. Below are some large buildings that are elderly housing, including an onsite hospice.

On Freedom trail down by the Fall River is this nice spring waterfall and the Kidney Springs Gazebo. The plaque by the kidney spring says "Useful in the treatment of chronic diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, diseases of the liver and biliary passages, diseases of the genitourinary tract and sluggish conditions of the alimentary tract". At the Mammoth site gift shop there are every color of stuffed mammoth you could want and T-shirts with Billy the biker mammoth. Fall river is in the process of building a giant mammoth statue over town. We had this giant onion blossom at lunch in the brewery. We should have followed John's advice to not eat anything bigger than our head-it was too greasy and too much. A sign that says The Veteran's town, Hot Springs South Dakota beside a buffalo mural.

We also visited Evan's Plunge spring pool. The pool is 87 degrees, a warm spring rather than a hot spring. It was 90 degrees outside, so the pool felt wonderful and it had this great water slide we rode. The smoke is back, the sun is red again.

In Pringe, South Dakota south of Custer we found this huge bike sculpture. A ton of bikes all wired together.

Back in Custer some of the painted buffalo statues on mainstreet. And John found a penguin. We are campped at Fort Welikit family campground. When we arrived back there were some deer in the fort playground.