On our first venture to Custer State Park we found this lake with a swim beach, which was remarkably warm after wading in our frigid creek. The girls would have liked to stay and play by the water all day. We found an indication of some of the life in the lake, the little snail.

The last shot is from the fire lookout near the lake, showing the devastation from a forest fire in I think 1988. This was before all the big fires that are now raging in the area. We could see a lot of fire mitigation work along the road sides, but there was so much downed wood and thick trees that you could tell how easily fire could jump from tree to tree.

This morning we have a gentle rain mist coming as a relief to our searing, dry heat. When we were evacuated for the Hayman fire here, I realized how a rain can be so much more powerful than all our efforts, including helicopters and planes dropping water and all the efforts of the fire fighters. While we at the lake at Custer a huge trailer was set up as a portable kitchen for the fire fighters, although they were mitigating instead of fighting then.

P.S. If you enlarge the top photo you can barely see the redwinged blackbird I was taking the photo of. Even though he is hard to see, I like the way the sunlight reflects off the reeds in the photo.