Day 33
Breakfast at the Irma Hotel was fantastic – though their “Best in
the West” biscuits and gravy were blah.
However, the bread pudding was YUM!!
So if you ever find yourself there, get some of that pudding.
We were prepared for a long, boring drive today, but it
turned out we rode on the Bighorn Scenic Byway through eastern Wyoming, which was fantastic!!! The views were spectacular, there were some
amazing examples of syncline thrust faults to show the girls (you really get a
sense of the Earth’s movement with these).
Between this road and Yellowstone, I hope the girls get plate tectonics J Like Jamey says, we just keep throwing it at
them and see what sticks.
The rest of Wyoming was much as we expected, though the HUGE
open pit coal mine was unexpected and started an entire conversation about
railroads, energy, and resources. I
later learned that the pit we passed was the largest in the country – who would
have known, the whole facility had no signage or symbols to identify it.
Jamey wasn't at all impressed with Devil's Tower - "pheh, I've seen taller volcanic intrusions...." Then he looked up...
Devil’s Tower was spectacular. We were even treated to watching rock
climbers ascending the almost entirely vertical slope. Pretty cool, though I wasn’t even close to
tempted – Jamey was. It did start an
entire conversation about how Eiley wants to go skydiving when she is 18. Jamey has done it before, so she feels like
this is right up her alley. We'll see in 8 years.
Right outside the Devil’s Tower Park is a cute little
prairie dog home. The prairie dogs were
about 3 feet from us and didn’t mind us taking pictures too much, but if you
moved to fast they would make a “MEEP” sound and all the prairie dogs (at least
100) in the field would sit up and run for the nearest hole. They would come back up in seconds once it
seemed no one got hurt. Very fun to
watch.
We finally got to South Dakota – a first for all of us! Went on a scenic byway with some
pretty falls. Then headed to Deadwood,
so we could really feel like we were in the wild west. It really helped that this was the weekend
before the Sturgis motorcycle rally!! To say that
there was a palpable feel of hostility, adventure, and “Oh my goodness, I am
out of my comfort zone” is an understatement.
There were probably thousands of VERY LARGE motorcycles with men in
Hell’s Angels leather jackets and women who looked like they had seen too much
sun everywhere! We headed up to Wild
Bill Hickok’s and Calamity Jane’s gravesites and then skedaddled out of there as fast as
we could.
Day 34
Of course we were silly to think that an hour outside of
Sturgis was far enough to escape the Hell’s Angels and Sons of Hell. Oh no, the motorcycles were overwhelming
everywhere we went in South Dakota.
There were even Main Streets and parking lots closed off to cars and only
open to motorcycles. OK, I get it – I am
now an old fuddy-duddy!
The bikes didn’t lower any of our enjoyment, though. It just gave everything a sense of
wildness. We started our day at Crazy
Horse. The engineering behind this
monument to the Lakota chief is just stunning. All of
Rushmore would fit into Crazy Horse’s head.
However, the monument is far from done and they won’t let you get too
close because of construction. Still, it
was a worthwhile entrance fee – going towards the Indian University of North
America and the completion of the monument. Bri thinks it will take 50 years to finish, I think 20 years and we'll come back with her kids to see it.
We then headed to Jewel Cave NP – the most stunning cave I have
ever visited. All the walls are made of
calcite crystals – very cool and well worth the visit. The girls were much more impressed with this
than they were the lava tubes J
Rushmore was exactly what we expected – the girls were so
impressed, they decided they wanted to become presidents as well. If only to have themselves immortalized in
stone.
On the way to the campsite we took the Needles Scenic
Highway. Whoever called this a road was
absolutely nuts!! It was mostly single
lane with crazy curves. Thank goodness
bikers have such loud motors!
The most insane part of this road was the 8 foot wide
tunnel. As we approached it, we first
came to a pull-out. I looked around and
couldn’t figure out where the road was supposed to continue. I looked over 90 degrees and stared at Jamey,
“Are they serious?” Yes, they were – it is amazing just how narrow 8 feet looks
as you approach a tunnel surrounded by rock and drop-offs! The highway was beautiful, though, and well
worth the craziness. I was just glad Jamey
drove the insane road this time.
Day 35
We headed to Wall Drug, because it was on the way and
why not? Well, the reason why not was an
entire town full of bikers!!!! We kind
of hid ourselves away, went shopping for a couple of odds and ends VERY quickly
and then ran away. Yeah, you could call
me a weenie – it just isn’t my scene!
South Dakota has delivered repeatedly with beautiful scenic byways, so we
went to Badlands to get a look around on our last byway.
It was stunning, though the rock layers' colors were more washed out than other
places we had been on our trips. This goes
back to the problem with seeing all of these beautiful places – we start to
expect to “get the cake and eat it too”.
Drove past the prairie homestead, but this picture shows the
entirety of the exhibit and we decided it was really not worth it.
As if the Wall Drug was not enough, we stopped at the
Mitchell Corn Palace (currently under renovation). The murals made of corn were pretty cool to
look at and they had really nice restrooms – yeah, that is all I have to say
about that! Actually, the caramel corn
cob we bought was yummy as a snack. Got into Sioux
Falls pretty late, so went straight to the hotel and zonked out early.
Day 36
Another long driving day across the vast plains of
nothingness we call the Midwest! There was one bright moment
of the day cruising across SD, Minnesota, and eastern Iowa. I missed an exit to get gas,
so we headed to the next town, which had a nice sounding name – Blue
Earth, Minnesota. Surely with a name like Blue
Earth, it would be a pleasant town.
Turns out it was not only a pleasant town, where the children were
introduced to cheese curds, it was also
the home of the 60 foot Green Giant.
Honestly, who would have thought?
Certainly not this easterner!
Got into Dubuque with plenty of time to spare. Spare time for what you ask? Our interstellar journey to Xandar. We traveled in the spaceship Milano, obtained the infinity stone, and rescued the Galaxy from Ronan. For all those of you who don’t watch Marvel – we went to see “Guardians of the Galaxy”. The girls were beyond excited!! They had been waiting to see this movie for months and finally they were able to make friends with Rocket and Groot (all of our favorites). “We are Groot!!”
Day 37
Another drive through nothingness in eastern Iowa, Illinois, and northern Indiana (ok, corn and peas are not nothing, but
after three days it gets old). I think I
have seen every pea grown in the US at this point! We made a small pit stop in Chicago for deep
dish pizza. Jamey has been trying to
convince me for years that it is amazing, I just never had the real stuff from
Chicago. I agreed to give it a fair
shot. Jamey researched the best pizza
places in Chicago and took us to Pequod’s.
I will say that the home made sauce was fantastic, the home made sausage
was stupendous, the vegetables were very fresh and cooked with a hint of crunch
(perfection), but honestly who needs that much crust!! Take all that and stick on a NY style crust
and it truly would have been a perfect pizza.
Jamey just shakes his head and has no "crust trust" in me anymore.
Got to the Indiana Dunes and the girls played to their heart’s
content. It was a much needed break from
long drives and horribly chlorinated hotel pools (which they didn’t even bother with in the
last two hotels). These dunes were not
nearly as awesome or tall as Oregon’s (which the girls mentioned several times) – so
they weren’t able to roll down them.
However, they still ran down them over and over and found plenty to
amuse themselves. I, on the other hand,
couldn’t stop starting at the two steel plants and the power plant that was the
entire western view on the beach.
YUCK!! Note the way the
smokestack output joins with the clouds to form a wonderful miasmic haze above Gary,
IN, thankfully not over the lake or the girls wouldn’t have gone near the
water. As it was, they found some steel
slag on the beach. Really nice – not!
Day 38
Indiana to Michigan to Ontario as we headed out to Niagara Falls via Canada today. It is sort of sad to be heading back home,
though it will be nice to have a permanent residence again. Got in pretty early and reunited with the grandparents. The girls were so excited to see their Nana and Papa!! Then they found out there was going to be a fireworks show over the falls and all was even better. The girls walked back to the hotel like zombies and slept like the dead.
Day 39
Had a fantastic day at Niagara Falls! The girls were thrilled with their ride on the Maid in the Mist - getting wet is always fun. We went on several small hikes and had a fantastic picnic on Goat Island - Nana, of course, treated us to some amazing food. Great to finally have a home-cooked meal not from a camp stove or restaurant. The girls all said that Niagara Falls were better than they expected and they wanted to come back. I have to admit, I have no idea why we hadn't made it there since they were little. We often forget the beautiful sights that are all around us.
I really could get into living the simple life on the road, though. It does feel like we overcomplicate life by putting in all kinds of stuff and perceived status symbols. It amazes me how much simpler it is when we just simply live, experience, laugh, and love! That is right, going through the Midwest has made me “cheesy” – ha, ha. Glad you curd come along for the ride. Tomorrow we will be home.
- 40 days, 11,200 miles, more than 12,000 pictures, and we still didn't see it all.
- We are already thinking about the next trip.
