Wind Cave National Park
Just to the south of Custer State Park is Wind Cave National Park, one of the earliest national parks established almost 100 years ago. After finishing the wild life loop in Custer State Park, we headed down to Wind Cave. Jo, who suffers from a bit of claustrophobia, was nonetheless willing to take a chance on joining me on a tour through the cave, encouraged in part by our visit earlier this spring to Luray Caverns in the Shanandoah Valley of Virginia. Wind Cave proved to be both a challenge to Jo’s claustrophobia and a visual disappointment. Unlike the many beautiful and colorful rock formations we had enjoyed at Luray Caverns, Wind Cave displayed 
no colorful formations and indeed only one type of formation – what they call boxwork – throughout the cave system. While boxwork was an interesting formation made up of flat planes of crystal, it was not very colorful, and was not enough to sustain a strong interest through the 75 minute tour underground. Also, the narrow, closed in passageways began to take their toll on Jo, and we were both glad when the tour came to an end.
Just to the south of Custer State Park is Wind Cave National Park, one of the earliest national parks established almost 100 years ago. After finishing the wild life loop in Custer State Park, we headed down to Wind Cave. Jo, who suffers from a bit of claustrophobia, was nonetheless willing to take a chance on joining me on a tour through the cave, encouraged in part by our visit earlier this spring to Luray Caverns in the Shanandoah Valley of Virginia. Wind Cave proved to be both a challenge to Jo’s claustrophobia and a visual disappointment. Unlike the many beautiful and colorful rock formations we had enjoyed at Luray Caverns, Wind Cave displayed 
no colorful formations and indeed only one type of formation – what they call boxwork – throughout the cave system. While boxwork was an interesting formation made up of flat planes of crystal, it was not very colorful, and was not enough to sustain a strong interest through the 75 minute tour underground. Also, the narrow, closed in passageways began to take their toll on Jo, and we were both glad when the tour came to an end. 
