So I have officially started my 6-weekish long road trip across the United States and back to Oregon in time for Christmas. I began my journey by heading north to Provo, Utah again to visit my dearest Kensie. It was a good visit. She's one of those people that I can do absolutely nothing with and feel like I had the best visit, I adore her. After leaving Bryce on Wednesday, I stayed with her until Friday. From there I headed north through the Wasatch Wilderness area and was so stoked to see snow. It was amazing!
The drive this way probably added a little bit to the excursion, but it was well worth it. The views alone were stunning. Fortunately there was no snow on the road which made it very easy traveling. I've had weather in the 60s and mostly 70s since I began my trip, which is very strange but wonderful for November, especially since I got some snow in there.
After entering Wyoming, I cut straight across to Laramie then headed northeast to South Dakota. I really wanted to see my brother who was in Denver, but unfortunately they encountered some delays and we never were able to cross paths. I always miss my big brother and I would have got a kick out of seeing him and Kaleigh (his girlfriend) with Tinkerbell (the dog) cruising around with my mom's trailer. Anyways, the first day I drove all the way to South Dakota. It was my longest day so far, and I drove over 800 miles in around 11.5 hours. I pulled into Wind Cave National Park and pitched my tent after dark. I was one of two campers in the campground that night, and the only one brave enough to sleep in a tent. It was beautiful and complete with my down jacket (that is molting and leaves feathers everywhere), I was warm.
In the morning I did a cave tour in Wind Cave. There were only five of us including the guide which was kind of nice. The cave is famous for it's "boxwork" that you can kind of see in the picture above, but my camera takes really poor cave pictures. The tour was only about an hour and then I ventured north through the park and saw some of the other above ground scenery including buffalo meandering down the road. I was kind of afraid they'd freak out when I passed them and slam into my car, but fortunately it didn't happen, otherwise there'd be a picture of my damaged car on here.
There was a short one-mile hike that I did here to this old look out tower. It gave great views of the park, however, you can no longer climb the lookout tower which was kind of a bummer. The park was beautiful though and there weren't many people which was really nice. I've decided if it's not snowing, this is a beautiful time to travel.
Wind Cave National Park leads directly into Custer State Park, which ultimately leads you straight to Mt. Rushmore. There's multiple scenic drives in the area that head north to mt. rushmore, but I chose a superb one. It's called the Iron Mountain Highway and there are built in tunnels that frame rushmore as you drive and it also leads you to many overlooks of not only the monument, but also the amazing wilderness area that surrounds it.
The monument seemed much smaller in real life than it appears on screen or in other forms of media, but it was still really cool. They really did a good job of discussing the artist and the history behind the artist's process and thoughts during construction. They didn't do as good of job discussing the history of the presidents. There was a display on each president along the presidential walk, and under presidential highlights, for Roosevelt, they didn't even include the National Parks system or his conservation efforts. I found that strange. But aside from these historical shortcomings, the monument was incredible. I can't imagine the effort, skill and time that went into such a carving endeavor. I would have been the worker who accidentally tripped over a chisel and knocked Washington's nose off or something. Maybe it would have been Jefferson's; his nose was huge.
I was really impressed by all the trees and the surrounding wilderness. A lot of depictions of the monument don't show how scenic or forested the surrounding area is. 
There's a town called keystone or something like that, just next to mt. rushmore. It reminded me of Sisters, OR in that it was western themed, but it was like Sisters on steroids. The whole place was over the top western. It was bizarre and a bit overkill if you ask me. After Mt. Rushmore, I rushed to the badlands. By that I mean I drove my usual 5 mph above the speed limit, but I felt rushed. I made it just in time to pitch my tent and set up my lantern before dark. This all happened in the midst of me taking an excessive amount of sunset pictures as well.
The coyotes were howling like crazy that night, packs and packs of them in all different directions. Before Halloween, some friends and I watched the b-rate horror movie called the craving. The premise was that there was this creature and it howled at night and during sunset as it was coming to kill you and such. I have to say, I was a little unnverved lying in my tent hearing all of this howling all around me. It continued to wake me up through the night too. It was really cool to hear them all though, especially since they never came for me.
In the morning I began my exploration of the badlands. Every trail there, including short walks to viewpoints had "Beware of Rattlesnakes" signs. I'm so glad it was November and too cold for them! I HATE SNAKES! Anyways, I started my tour with a brief 1.5 mile hike to what is called the notch. This took me to a canyon overlook which was right at the eastern-most end of the park. It was something you can't see on the drive through the park. It was nice to get out and walk too, as the 26-mile drive through the park took me about two hours. There were way too many amazing views that I had to stop for, as you can see.
So next I did the driving tour and it was so stunning. Each new bend offered something different. Initially there were more mountainous looking formations, but later in the park, more rolling hill-like formations were incorporated. The further you ventured into the park, however, the more colors you saw in the hills, from browns, reds, yellows to blues and some green tones. It was so phemonenally beautiful and the drive on either side was just so flat. I'm not exactly sure where this amazing place even came from when I was driving up to it.
Towards the end of the park, (I opted not to do the whole loop as 25 miles of it were gravel), on the way back I got to see some big-horned-sheep, for the second time in my life. The other time was in Glacier and it took me two months to get to see some there. They were so gorgeous and looked at me when I got out of my car, analyzed me and decided eating their grass was much more important. Unfortunately my camera doesn't have that great of zoom.
Finally I headed off down the road towards Iowa. That night I again made it to the campground just before sunset. I stayed right on the eastern shore of the Missouri River, and since I was one of three in the campground (again the only one in a tent) I got the most perfect campsite, right on the cliff overlooking the water. I decided at one point to try to get some pictures of the river, that and I have a thing about touching the water of various places, kind of a milestone or something for me. Needless to say, I needed to touch the Missouri. I didn't realize that the ground was really muddy in the last two feet up to the river, so I sank in and when I tried to pull my foot out, I tossed my flip-flop into the river. As it's starting to float away, I lunged for it and sunk into the mud with my other foot. I was covered in mud, at least my feet, but I saved the shoes and fortunately they had showers there.... AWESOME!
The next day I headed very straightly into Iowa and then continued straight on across Iowa. The first part of Iowa smelled like one giant feedlot, but the towns seemed more well developed or established than in South Dakota. I counted along the way and there were eight dead skunksalong the road as well as eight anti-abortion signs in the first 3 hours of that days driving. If you included all road kill and signs that suggested I seek God in order to save my soul, the numbers tied at 14. One really cool thing across Iowa, is that a lot of the barns had quilt patterns painted on the sides of them, and they were all different. This provided some intrigue as I traveled.
I stayed on the border of Iowa and Illinois that night as the campground I originally planned to stay at wasa little questionable, so I got myself a hotel room. It was nice to have a shower, but funnily enough the water pressure was turned up super high and the shower head was missing so the water came out in one forceful and violent stream. It was a quick shower. The next day, I drove hwy 80 to Chicago area and around the southern tip of Lake Michigan, through Illinois and finally into Michigan. It was a shorter day and was very nice to finally arrive at my Aunt Emily's and my Uncle Bill's. The drive to Michigan was relatively unexciting because I chose to do it all on interstate. Fortunately I had some great tunage and my focus on some good visiting. The trip has gone really well so far, and I've barely begun. Only 2,200ish miles down... soooo many to come! 
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