We Made It!

Florence, MN only 1800 Miles to go!

Day 1

We started off Wednesday morning from Marshall just before 8. From there we headed west to Huron to have lunch with Denny and Yvonne in Huron, SD. After that it was off to The Hills. It was a relaxing drive through SD as we checked out many of the fields. We made a stop at 1880 town for a short break. It was just buildings from that era, nobody doing much there so we had to make our own fun. Erica played piano as I bar tended. It was off season so not a lot of traffic, we got bored fairly quick. We left 1880 and headed to The Hills. We made a stop at Mt. Rushmore to see the dead presidents. We walked around for a bit to loosen up our legs and get some air. We saw some wildlife along the trail with some real live mountain goats. We left Mt. Rushmore and headed to the Cosmos but it was closed when we got there. Not to pleased about that. We wanted to head to the Crazy Horse so we thought we would cross through Custard State Park. It was getting close to dark and the dear were just starting to come out. The 15 mile drive took us and hour and a half. Deer every where, switch backs, narrow roads and one lane tunnels. It was amazingly beautiful though. From there we headed to Deadwood for the night. A nice dinner, a couple of drinks and some gambling tied up the night. No gun fights though.

Day 2

We left Deadwood bright and early the next morning and thanks to some advice from a local server, we headed through spearfish canyon. We saw our first of many waterfalls, drove through the beautiful fall colors and continued on to Wyoming. We soon discovered we started our road trip at the ideal time to experience the true fall colors...wow we saw some amazing views. We were headed to Yellowstone and passed through the Cody, Wyoming area which was one of the most scenic legs of the trip. We continued through the mountains, valleys and forest to Yellowstone. We made our way through the mountain roads and wildlife to Old Faithful. We saw the many geysers and again made our way through the park at dusk keeping a close eye out for the elk, deer, bison and tourists...unfortunately no bears were spotted. We left the park and headed into Montana. Our drive from Yellowstone to Butte appeared to be a scene straight out of a horror movie. Our cell phones were dead, there were 3 other vehicles in a 50 mile stretch and an old pickup truck passed and flashed his lights and as Brian returned the favor he slammed on his brakes and appeared to be turning around. We survived the onslaught as the trusty 4 cylinder Altima drove us out of the desolate canyon. We spent the night in Butte, MT with one eye open and our doors tightly locked.