South Dakota’s Custer State Park and its wild donkeys were a favorite stop for us last year. We thought that it would be a great end to this year’s trip before traveling on to visit David’s mother and brother, then on to home.
Custer is essentially a wildlife park. It has a bison farm with an annual round-up. Pronghorn antelope, turkeys, and sheep are plentiful within its boundaries. And its donkeys are anything but wild, practically demanding handouts from visitors.
Unfortunately, the park’s campsite reservation process is so convoluted that you can only stay in a site one night without reserving online or making a phone call between 9 am to 2 pm.
On this trip, we arrived after five at the campground and were too late to reserve the next night’s stay by phone. After the camp hosts told us the available sites, we set up camp, then drove to the neighboring lodge to abscond internet service in order to reserve our site for the second night. During the process, however, we discovered that in the last year Custer had not only raised their rates 25 percent for campsites and day passes but, in addition, were charging nearly an $8 penalty fee for nonresidents. As a result, if we booked online, our camping site fee rose from an already high $24 to $32 a night.
We have traveled across western Canada and all but one of the 50 states. In all of our travels, we have always been treated as guests… never have we been charged a fee because we are nonresidents. While we love Custer State Park and South Dakota, we now feel like commodities rather than welcomed friends. And with Roosevelt and its wild horses only five hours north (and with campsites costing only $10 a night!), in the future, I know where we will stay!
As a result of the additional costs, we opted to stay only one night before heading towards home.
We leave you one last time with photos of those crazy “wild” donkeys of Custer:
We leave you one last time with photos of those crazy “wild” donkeys of Custer:
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