Roadtrip

So....I've finally reached South Dakota. Actually, we got here late Saturday night, after leaving Wednesday morning. The driving wasn't nearly as tedious as I had expected. We probably could have made it in less time, but it was nice to be able to stop places along the way. Here's a wrap-up of the past couple of days:

Wednesday: Pretty boring. We drove across NY, the entire state of PA, and about half of OH, stopping in Columbus. The weather was kind of yucky, and there isn't much to do in Columbus. We got in at around 8:30 and after getting dinner, spent about a half an hour trying to decide what to do before just watching TV.

Thursday: Driving through the rest of OH, all of IN, a bit of IL, and into MO. This is where we made my personal favorite stop (*cough*cough*) - Boondocks Farm! I took the first leg of driving on this day, and after a couple of hours, I really needed to get up and stretch, so I told Joe that we were stopping at the next rest stop, regardless of what it was. Central Indiana, outside of Indianapolis, is pretty much farmland. And nothing else. So much to Joe's dismay, the next rest stop ended up being a little Evangelical Christian petting zoo. There was absolutely no one there, except for some cages of animals, a little wooden cottage, and a gigantic wooden cross. Apparently there was a wedding going on that day, although we didn't see any of the people - just signs directing traffic. Later on we saw some cars coming in.

We then drove the rest of the way to St. Louis, where we stayed with Joe's grandparents (who are pretty much awesome). His grandfather had a real tiki bar constructed downstairs in the house, which I thought was pretty sweet.

Friday: St. Louis Arch! It reminded me a lot of the Space Needle in Seattle - constructed in the same era with the same sort of futuristic-type sentiment. The view of the river was pretty nice, and overall, I really liked the city. The rest of the day was driving to Omaha. Not too much else, although Omaha was a surprisingly substantial town - I had imagined it to be a lot smaller.



Saturday: We reach South Dakota! The drive was long, and through the absolute middle of nowhere, but we got to see some really gorgeous land. The view along I-90 is pretty incredible. Stops along the way included the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota (not really worth seeing, let me tell you) and Wall Drug (as hokey as it is, definitely worth a stop, IMO). It is also very well advertised - between IA/SD border and Wall Drug, we managed to count about 100 signs for the place.

Sunday: Driving to Wyoming! Only a 60 mile trip one way - it fascinates me that out west, driving someplace 60 miles away is a short afternoon trip. But when you can drive 75 miles an hour the whole way, it pretty easy :). Wyoming was gorgeous and I'd love to go back, because I didn't really get to see much - just parts of the Black Hills and some gorgeous red mountains that start appearing along the border. Sunday night was Mount Rushmore, which I felt was a bit overrated. It was also FREEZING - temperatures drop quickly out here at night. Neat to see though, and nice that the parking pass is good for a year, so maybe I'll go back at another time of day later on this summer.

Monday: Driving Joe to the airport, taking advantage of the wireless here to update my blog, and now....checking out of the hotel and going off to the Conata Basin! Hopefully I will update soon (we'll see how easy it is to get online out there....)

Erin