Close Encounters of the Scary Kindt

This morning started out with a pleasant walk from our hotel , the Washington Inn, in Keystone S. Dakota. We strolled with coffees in hand past souvenir shops selling tshirts, mugs, jewelry and other knick knacks and sat by the river discussing our route for the day.
We were packing up our bags, Jeff was doing a few stretches for his back on the floor in our room. Next thing I hear, unbelievably is......"there's a snake on the floor" anyone that knows me probably knows I am terrified of snakes. The location of this snake was the edge of the head of the bed ON MY SIDE! I immediately ran into the bathroom, could not look at it. Jeff said I better go tell the hotel desk and he would watch it didn't disappear. Now the snake was a baby; the hotel guy thought it might be poisonous and therefore the bite, if it bit, would not be harsh. Well from what we know of baby rattlesnakes, the babies haven't learned to control the amount of venom they inject so they let the whole wad go! I waited outside while it was captured (hoping there was just one) . Soon the news was shared with all the staff and one of the housekeepers told me she had not heard of a snake in the 14 yrs she had been there.THEN, she said to me, you know some boys told me the other day there was a snake in the closet, but she didn't believe them as they were just kids!!!! I could not get away from there fast enough.
We started out for Custer State Park which we had visited part of yesterday, it was so beautiful and we wanted to see more of it.. The park ranger yesterday told us to ride the wildlife loop, that the buffalo were in the south end. Off we went, entering the park, the ranger said she just had word on the radio there were a lot of buffalo on the road so be cautious. I said what should we do????? She said if they were still there we should try to drive beside a car to get through them. They were 8 miles ahead and I was very nervous. First sign we saw said .....drive slowly...turtles crossing....sure enough there was one lone turtle crossing.
We got to the 8 mile mark and boy were there buffalo....too many to count, all over the narrow 2 lane road. Again I was terrified for the second time today! I wanted to turn around and go back from where we came! Jeff said, not possible, too narrow, too many vehicles waiting from each side trying to pass.....best to move at a crawl through and hope they move. There were female buffalo with young nursing right in the middle of the road.!!! We managed to get the car in front of us and the truck behind us to keep tight to us, then we moved beside the car and inched along. Unbelievably the situation actually got worse. More of the beasts came onto the road! I told Jeff I wanted to get off the bike and I asked the car beside us if I could get in their car, they said of course. I felt terribly abandoning Jeff to the buffalo, but in reality he was better without a hysterical woman on the bike.
The last buffalo we had to pass was massive, taller than the SUV I was now in.....Jeff kept to the opposite side where the buffalo were a tad smaller and we managed to all get through safely.  Further on down the park we encountered more herds but thankfully they were not as close.
The rest of the day was uneventful, we saw wild donkeys, antelope and amazing scenery in the badlands.
We are spending the night in a small town called Wall, it is the home of the Wall Drug Stores, tomorrow we will visit the store, which is I think the only game in town.  We walked out to a bar for dinner (there being nothing else open) . It seemed to be all locals and one fellow took a fancy to me! He told me I was so beautiful!!, asked Jeff, do you mind? The waitress later asked if he was bothering us, he was drinking triple jack Daniels!
I would say it was an eventful day.