We were all set to venture into British Columbia and re-visit some of our favorite destinations in Banff, Jasper, and Lake Louise, but after looking at the weather reports nearly every day on our Alaska Cruise, We finally came to the conclusion that spending time in British Columbia this year wouldn’t be the best use of our time.<\/p>\n
There were reportedly over 500 forest fires blazing away north of the border, and the smoke and haze wasn’t any better than California, Oregon, and even Washington. Since the primary goal of this trip, other than enjoy ourselves, was to capture some new wildlife and landscape images and videos. With 500 forest fires in the area, it didn’t make sense.<\/p>\n
But guess what? South Dakota was reporting nearly normal visibility, so we made some quick changes to our reservations and came to Rapid City, where we based ourselves as we made our way around Custer State Park<\/a>.<\/p>\n