Motoring home!

We left Flagstaff, AZ at 8:00AM Pacific time. We went off plan twice but stayed on the main plan! We had fast food, not once but twice, lunch and dinner. Lunch was eaten in the car and dinner was eaten at 10:00PM Central time. We drove for 12 hours and made it over 700 miles to Elk City, OK. We did, however make the mandatory pilgrimage to the Cadillac Ranch for a little ‘tagging’. We’re 1300 miles from home and hope to get to Apex by Friday. We are both hoping to see Gwynn, Emily, and Nicholas before they all leave on Sunday for a week. We both are missing our beds and home cooked meals. We are still having a lot of laughs!

Heading East!

We left Vegas this morning and headed home. Peter has done great, but I know that he wants to get home. I'm ready to sleep in my own bed as well.

We drove to the Hoover Dam, which is most impressive and amazing. We went on the tour, which is well worth the visit. The drive from the Hoover Dam to I40 is as desolate as they get. WOW! It is an amazingly stark landscape! Check out the dust devil!
We got to I40/RT66 and stopped at a great little diner for lunch. After lunch we headed north to the South Rim of The Grand Canyon.

My two biggest regrets from this trip are that we did not leave more time for Yellowstone and The Grand Canyon. Both are absolutely breathtaking! We stayed as long as we could at The Grand Canyon but had over seventy miles of back roads to Flagstaff, AZ. The speed limit was 55 to 65 mph, but it was getting dark and the deer and elk were coming out onto the road often; it was quite unnerving. We hope to get to OK City tomorrow.

VIVA Las Vegas!

We drove from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas on Sunday. On the way we had the pleasure of having the “Best tasting water in the USA” at a restaurant in Beaver, UT. I must say that it was delicious. I asked the waitress about the water and she said up until five years ago, they were not even allowed to drink their water!
At the suggestion of a friend, we made a stop at Zion National Park. We did not have time to stay long, but saw enough to know that we will need to come back.
We arrived in Vegas at about 4:00PM local time. Peter stayed in the pool from then until 9:00PM. He really had a great time. The pool had a shark tank next to it with a waterslide that went through the middle of it. On Monday we hung out around the hotel and went over to New York, New York for lunch and to ride the roller coaster. Overall, Vegas was a good time. Honestly, Peter enjoyed it the most.
We’ll leave today and head home.

Yellowstone National Park

We left Cody, WY to enter Yellowstone through the East entrance. We drove, what is called the Grand Loop. I never realized how big the park is; we drove over 150 mile in the park. The landscape and wildlife are incredible. You need at least a week to see the highlights. Peter took the picture of the bull elk from about 30 feet away. He could have gotten closer but the signs in the park remind you that these are wild animals and several tourists are injured or killed by the wildlife each year. While eating lunch on the Snake River, a bison was less than 100 yards from us on the other side rolling in the dust. It is amazing here. We left the park after 8:00PM through the South entrance into Grand Teton National Park, where we camped for the night.
I had forgotten how many stars are in the sky! The night sky was amazing without the lights from the strip malls and car dealerships.
We got on the road by 9:00AM and drove towards Vegas. On the way we stopped in Jackson Wyoming to say hi to a friend of mine and get some lunch. We also drove through Preston, ID (home of Napoleon Dynamite). Peter was going to get his hair cut at “The Cuttin’ Coral”, but it was closed.
From there we made it as far as Salt Lake City. We should make it to Las Vegas by this evening.

South Dakota to western Wyoming.

We left Rapid City, SD yesterday and drove to Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Custer State Park, Wind Cave National Park and ended at Devil’s Tower National Park. All of the stops were great and amazing in there own way. Along the way we saw buffalo, deer, and loads of prairie dogs. We drove through some amazing scenery. The picture of Devil’s tower was taken from our campsite!
We woke up early and hiked around the tower. There were several rock climbers about halfway up that we watched for quite awhile. They were so far away but you could hear their conversations clearly. We left around 11:00AM and took back roads into Montana, South Dakota, North and North Dakota. We were on one dirt road for close to 100 miles, we only saw other vehicles the last 20 or so miles! There was “cattle at large” during quite a bit of the road. We had to stop for cows more than once and missed a deer by less than 5 feet. We got back onto the highway and pulled into Cody, WY about 8:00PM. We’ll head into Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks tomorrow. We are planning on staying with a friend in Jackson, WY.

The Badlands, SD

We drove from the eastern to the western side of South Dakota yesterday. There were not many opportunities to get off I90 for interesting side trips. We did stop in Mitchell, SD to see The Corn Palace. And in Wall, SD to visit Wall Drugs. For those of you who don't know, the signs start about 300 miles away for Wall Drugs. It becomes apparent, when you get there that Wall Drugs is the town of Wall. I was told that over half of the town was employed by Wall Drugs. We ate at a restaurant that had to bring in most of it's staff from overseas for the summer. So here we are in a 'kind of cowboy' diner, and our waiter (dressed in appropriate cowboy garb) is from Uzbekistan, with the accent to match. Peter made the comment that Wall Drug should be called West of the Boarder. It's only a bit less tacky than South of the Boarder.

We took an amazing drive through the Badlands. We stopped several times to hike and explore. The weather was threatening and the temperature was cool. Even with that, it was very hot in the Badlands while hiking. We had planned to camp at Wind Caves last night but the temperature dropped into the 40s, the wind picked up and it rained in buckets. Since Mt. Rushmore was on the way to the Camp area, we decided to stop at a hotel before Rushmore and get an early start. We want to see things during clear weather.

Heading West.

We left Ohio on Sunday morning about 8:00AM. Thank God I was obsessed about getting through Chicago on Sunday. We would still be there if we had waited until a week day! It took 2 hours to go about 20 miles. We drove through Indiana, into Michigan, Illinois, Wisconson and across the Mississippi River into Minnisotta. Per our plan, we were able to get alot of miles in. We arrived at Great River Bluff State Park at around 7:00PM central time. We ate and went to bed late, but slept well.

We were able to get driving by about 9:00AM. Today we were able to get off the interstate and see some sights. Peter even got a chance to drive.

We visited the Spam Museum and ate at Johnny's Spam-o-rama! We also visited Pipestone National monument.

We dove to Sioux Falls, SD and decided to stay at a hotel for the night. We should make it to the Badlands, SD by tomorrow afternoon.

Yesterday we drove to Willowdale Lake in Canton, OH. We made it to my friends house much sooner that we expected so we had to crash a party with them in the afternoon. They have a beautiful house on the lake and we went around by boat to a couple of different parties until about 11:00pm.

We hope to get on the road early enough today to get west of Chicago.

Locked and loaded!

Well the car is packed and fueled up. We're hoping for a 6:00am start. Should be in Canton, OH by dinner. We are hoping to get two or three 500+ mile days before we slow down the pace. I'd like to be west of the Mississippi River by Monday. We'll see!