Road Trip July 28-30th

Yes, she DID send a 100 lb bag of Good-n-Plenty

We didn't get away from mom and dad's until later Saturday afternoon so we decided to just drive a few hours and stop when we were tired.  Mom and dad had graciously offered to keep Floyd until Nic was ready to move into his new place so we didn't have to choose our hotels based on who was willing to let us keep a dog.  We did a quick sleepover in Rock Springs, WY then took off to see South Dakota.  We had already done the "across the middle of the US" drive before so opted to head North a bit and see some places we hadn't been before.  Wyoming isn't considered beautiful country but I thought it was all nice in it's own way.

The terrain gradually changed into a pretty forest area and as you come through some winding roads up to the memorial, it's really pretty amazing!

So when I was in grade school we did those silhouettes where we stood  against the wall while our teacher outlined our profiles on black paper and then we cut them out to mount on lighter paper.  I remember bringing mine home and my mom taking it from the pile of homework and asking if it was George Washington.  Now I see why.

As we drove further through the towns there were motorcycles everywhere!  Apparently this area is very popular all the time with bikers though it also is on the trail for the Sturgis Rally which was a week or so away.  We spoke with a couple  traveling South and they saw our license plate and asked about the traffic around Denver.  The woman rider was very nervous about being around a lot of cars and they'd heard bad things about Denver rush hours.  We told them it wasn't probably wasn't any worse than any other big city during rush hour but they might want to time their arrival to avoid as much as possible. Hope they made it safely!

There were patches in the forest that looked either very dry or sick.  Looked like a fire waiting to happen.

We stopped and watch a group of teens who were jumping off the rocks.  Looked pretty fun!

We continued our drive into Rapid City, SD and had to check a couple of hotels for vacancies before settling in for the night.  We ended up at this Holiday Inn that was really nice and close enough to town that we could go walking.  I didn't have my camera but they had bronze statues of each of the presidents on the street corners.

We also got in early enough each night that we could hunker down and watch the recap of the days happenings at the London Olympics!

We made sure we stayed at places that offered free breakfasts which we thoroughly enjoyed before taking a piece of fruit and hitting the open road.  The next morning as we drove out of town, the Wall Drug Store signs started and for 50 miles along hwy 90, every few miles there would be another one.  Well, we couldn't just ignore them so we pulled off and Wall Drug Store turned out to be a street lined mish mash of shops, eateries and all kinds of things.  No real rhyme or reason to the place but they did offer a 10 cent cup of coffee in traditional white mugs we saw everyone carrying around the place and free fresh doughnuts to veterans which we felt compelled to take advantage of even though we'd recently eaten breakfast!

Fresh donuts made all day

In the mall area there's a mini chapel for travelers to slip into for a moment of quiet.  I thought that was a great idea.

Yes, I believe it IS a Jackalope

Yes, these ARE the touristy things you would normally have your kids climb on for pictures but since we were sans kids and since we are kind of dorks, we had no qualms about jumping in for some goofy pix.

The little kids loved this dinosaur who would come to mechanical life and raise up over that fence with an open mouth.

This reminded me of an old photo of my dad with his friend Stewart on a bench similar to this.  I think it was the same girl......maybe they were just sisters!