Day(s) 1 Recap

Forgive the small number of pictures on this one. The first memory stick I used in the digital camera doesn’t work with my computer and the equipment I have. You’ll have to wait until I get home or until I happen to see a really cheap memory stick reader. You can click any picture here or in any other post to see a description.

Day 1: Can you say looooooooong? Between the time we left Aaron’s house and the time we entered our hotel room, we spent about 28 1/2 hours out there. When we finally reached our location we couldn’t find the hotel because I forgot to print out the reservation info and the hotel was not listed on the gps. Eventually I decided to just pick a random address on a street that I knew was near the hotel. On the way we saw our hotel, and the gps finally found it. The day(s) wasn’t all that exciting though.

The first 13 hours of our trip we saw nothing and did nothing except get gas. Iowa and Eastern South Dakota are everything they are advertised to be. I don’t know, maybe someone who doesn’t live in farmland would appreciate that part of the country better, but I personally find it hard to believe that there is anywhere more boring to drive across in the world.

The most interesting thing we saw on the first techincal day was the edge of the front that had downpoured on us earlier in the day (before we left). I wish I were kidding. Other than that, there were a couple towns in Iowa that had a single windmill that appeared too be the power source for the town. I can’t imagine any other reason a town would have one and only one windmill.

That is about all there is to say about Iowa. It was already night by the time we got to South Dakota, so I have nothing to say about the scenery of Eastern South Dakota, but I can comment on the number of people on the road. Between the state line and Sioux Falls (about 70 miles), there were only 5 vehicles within half a mile of us on our side of the road. Four of them were trucks that got on the highway and were quickly passed by us. Later there was a two-hour strech that I counted only 26 cars coming the opposite direction. Granted, this was all late at night, but that’s still ridiculous. The best thing I found out during the drive was that people in South Dakota pronounce their capital city “Peer.”

We stopped at a rest area to get a little sleep before the next day. Of course, it was 4:00 when we stopped, and I wanted to be at the Badlands around 5:30 when they were half an hour away. The trip almost ended early on the way to the Badlands. I was looking at an animal in a field, trying to decide whether it was a deer or an antelope when I saw an antelope standing right on the shoulder of the road as I drove by. Had it decided to run out in front of me, I never would have seen it. We did make it there though, not long after 5:30 (5:54 we stopped inside the park).

The Badlands were amazing. It would be really hard to explain without pictures, which I don’t have right now. Some of the formations were sticking up from ground level and some were sunk below ground level, so there were some places when you could stand in one spot and see badlands up a hundred feet and down a hundred feet. This isn’t my picture, but it’ll at least give you an idea: link. There were only a couple places that you weren’t allowed to go, and both of them were near cliffs. You could climb up the sides of the badlands pretty easily because they weren’t sloped very steep; again, I have pictures that I can’t show.

There were mule deer everywhere inside the park. We saw more than one deer for every mile of road in the park, easily. It actually got kind of irritating. Also running around everywhere were thirteen-lined ground squirrels. They were running up the sides of pretty steep hills with ease. We saw a few bighorn sheep and were going over to get a closer look when a woman came over and said there was one about 15 feet away from the edge. She was apparently some type of wildlife biologist for the park. She ended up showing us where several groups of bighorns were, including three ewes with calves that we could see with her binoculars.

From the Badlands, we ate our first official meal in Wall, SD around 9:00. We made it to Mt. Rushmore from there before 11:00. Mt. Rushmore was pretty cool, but there’s not a whole lot to say about it. There was only one picture we got from there that wasn’t on the first memory stick:

The Black Hills (which do actually look black from a distance–it’s the dark wood of the ponderosa pines that make it look that way) in general were comparatively interesting after the drive to there, but compared to the Badlands and where we’ve been since then, I don’t think I’d ever go there if it wasn’t on my way. I do have a pass to Mt. Rushmore that will last until December if anyone wants it and has a license plate with “hoops” in it. We could see the Crazy Horse monument being carved in the distance on the way out, but the pictures don’t show it particularly well.

We were on two-land highways from South Dakota until 88 miles into Wyoming. They were pretty much straight and not busy, so we could drive 70 MPH most of the way (65 MPH limit). However, in South Dakota, they were doing road construction in a few parts. Now, there aren’t as many roads out there as there are in Illinois. In Illinois, when road construction is done on a two-lane road, they detour you around it. In South Dakota, they turn the roads into one-line for a few miles. That means you have to stop and wait for a line of cars to drive (slowly) through the construction zone before you can go. The first time we waited for about 10 minutes before this woman would let us through:

Western South Dakota and Wyoming were nice areas but not anywhere I’d ever want to live. There was just too must open space and scenery and too little…everything else. I think this sign I saw in Wyoming said it all: “Lost Creek Population 1″ Here are a few pictures from the road in Wyoming:

Once we hit Colorado, it almost instantly became more populated. The highway became six lanes with all six being used. The drive through Denver was pretty fun actually. Although the speed limit was 55, no one was going below 65. As long as there are more than two lanes on your side of the road, I like driving when there are a lot of cars but they aren’t stopping. I’m a lot more alert to what everyone else is doing because I consider it a challenge to get to where I want There was only one bad spot of traffic, and that was right in the middle of downtown.

We started seeing the Rocky Mountains when we were in Wyoming, but our first good look was when we got near Colorado Springs. It’s kind of funny now as we debated which mountain was Pikes Peak.  Once we got around a bend and saw a good view of all the mountains around Colorado Springs, there was no doubt at all.  “Majestic” was the only word I had for it.  I think we got some good videotape of it because the only picture of it we have from the first day isn’t good enough to show.  But even as majestic it was from the bottom, I don’t think either of us expected the trip up and down the next day to be as good as it ended up being.

Note:   I’m going to start working on the Day 2 recap now, but since it’s midnight here and I have a lot of pictures to resize and upload, I know I won’t finish it.  I might just write the recap and put the pictures up tomorrow night.  I do have a picture from the trip to Pikes Peak on the map right now though if you want to check that out.

Advertisement