There are a variety of versions of the story, but one version of the story is that President Calvin Coolidge packed up his family, his dogs and his pet raccoon for a three-week vacation in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Teddy Roosevelt had recommended the destination. Old Cal had never before even gone fishing. He got to South Dakota, had great luck with his first attempt at fishing, due in part to the over-zealous stocking of trout just ahead of his arrival at the stream. At any rate, he ended up staying three months instead of three weeks. He ended up staying long enough for a photo op on the front steps of our church.

We are camped at Stockade Lake, just a few miles from our home, right on the edge of Custer State Park. We have come for just two nights and one day, but it is enough for a lot of stories. If President Coolidge could get three months and a half dozen things named after him and his dear Grace out of a three-week vacation. I ought to be able to get a week’s worth of blogs out of a day spent exploring Custer State Park.

Let’s see . . . I could write why I like the gravel roads in the park better than the paved ones. It is partly due to the summer traffic on the paved roads. It is partly the great names: North Lame Johnny Road, Swint Road, Lower French Creek Road, Oak Draw Road, Fisherman Flats Road.

There could easily be a blog about the antics of prairie dogs and the postures assumed by otherwise normal human beings when they are trying to capture pictures of the little critters. I imagine that the prairie dogs are as amused watching the people as the people are amused watching the prairie dogs.

The old bull buffalo deserve their own blog. They look hot and tired as they sit in their dust wallows on a hot August day. I’m guessing that the flies are a major nuisance even when you are the biggest critter in the region and should have no fear. The coyotes don’t have nerve to mess with the old guys, but the flies won’t leave them alone.

I could write about the young antelope trying to decide whether or not to cross the road with mama on the other side and a great big pickup just stopped right in the middle of the road. Should he go or should he stay? The pickup wouldn’t hit him, but he has no way of knowing that all the people in the pickup want is a picture.

There is a blog in the tree swallows harvesting insects over Legion Lake in the late evening. They are such skillful fliers. The come close to collisions, but avoid them at the last minute. Watching them fly is as exciting as the Indianapolis 500 or the Reno Air Races.

I could blog about how I think that even though it is not as far, hiking Stockade Loop is more challenging than hiking to Little Devil’s Tower because the path is so steep and almost entirely covered in scree that moves each time you put your foot down. It is a good workout to hike up to the top of the ridge and worth it for the view of the Needles and other features of the hills.

And I should blog about seeing four immature osprey fledge. They made it across the lake, even if their first landings into trees were less than graceful. Mother kept fishing across the lake and called out to them from time to time, but they weren’t bold enough to come back to her and she had no intention of going to them until she caught a fish.

But I decided to write a bit about the burros. I know a bit about the subject because we raised burros when I was growing up. I know that the burros in Custer State Park are left over from a concessionaire who used them to transport tourists from the old Sylvan Lake Lodge to the top of Harney Peak and back. When the business went belly up, the burros were turned loose to fend for themselves, and so far they seem to be doing a pretty good job of it. But it is a bit more romantic to tell the story that the miners imported the burros to work the mines and then abandoned them when the riches didn’t come in as quickly as planned.

We raised Spanish Burros, with the dark cross across their back. The legend is that the burro got is cross marking as a reward for carrying Mary to Bethlehem when she was expecting Jesus and for carrying Jesus into Jerusalem. I know that there are lots of other names for burros. I was reminded of that frequently by some of my adolescent classmates who gave me the unofficial and unwanted nickname by modifying my last name. They removed the “Huff” from Huffman and replaced it with another name for a burro. They were adolescent boys, so you can imagine what they called me. It wasn’t donkeyman.

We owned ½ interest in a Jack donkey, so we had at least one colt each year. One year one of our colts broke her leg in a cattle guard and we ended up keeping her so we had two breeding Jennies for a while. The little one proved not to be the best mother, however. The guy who had the other ½ of our Jack had a mare. She produced mules for the Forest Service. Now fractional interests in mules has probably never been a great investment but owning ¼ of a mule is not a way to get rich the year the Forest Service gave up using mules for their work. It seems that at our auction there were no more customers left. In those days a brand inspection cost $12, so if the mule sold for $8, the net loss meant that the ¼ shareowner had to pay the brand inspector $1. That would have been less painful if the brand inspector hadn’t been the one who bought the critter in the first place. It seemed a bit of indignity to have to pay to get rid of the animal.

So I like to visit the burros in Custer State Park. They are gentle animals and a few of them remind me of the ones we used to raise. Growing up the way I did, I have no desire whatsoever to own a burro, but it is nice to know where I can visit one when I want to.

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