Day 7,213 of My Trip

It's hard to believe that I was at Amy and Geoff's saying goodbye to Mom on Thursday.

The Jeep has killed 87 million bugs and is doing fine, but it does not like 40 MPH headwinds coupled with hills. If there's no wind, it will cruise at the speed limit (75 MPH here) with no problem. If there is a substantial wind, it will slow down to 60 going up long hills. I guess it's time for a Tim-The-Tool-Man-Taylor comment...More Power! Of course if I was driving something more aerodynamic than your average milk barn, I wouldn't have this problem.

Yesterday was a sight seeing day. I drove about 100 miles from Murdo and left the interstate for Badlands National Park. This is a truly amazing place and well worth the $15 entry fee. If I trained for about 3 months, I would like to come back and spend a couple of weeks in the back country in this park. I saw my first prairie dog, one tired looking bison, and more geology than you could imagine.

At first glance, the place looks like a desolate, eroded wasteland, but "life will find a way" (bonus points for correct citation of the quote) and every where you turn there are fields full of wildflowers, critters, or wind battered bushes clinging to the sides of impossible bluffs. God is truly great.

My trip down the road less traveled took me out of the park on 20 miles of very well maintained gravel road. You would have thought that I had been transported to Missouri when I left the park. One minute I was staring at eroded desolation, the next I was driving through farm land with beautifully run operations.

Once I hit pavement, Aunt Sophie directed me to Mount Rushmore. I was unimpressed. It reminded me of Gatlinburg with a rock. If anybody wants to see the place before the end of the year, I'll loan them my parking permit and front license plate. It's good till 12/31, but the nutball at the toll booth put the vanity tag number on the permit.

Due to driver error, and an unfavorable review from a friend, I bypassed Crazy Horse and headed back to the 4-lane, and pointed the Jeep West.

Wyoming is interesting. The people I've met here are really nice. I guess you have to be when your nearest neighbor is 5 miles away. This state has one thing I've never seen before...driveways that dump directly onto the interstate. There are exits with no acceleration ramps that appear to go only to one ranch or another. I suppose the interstate cut off access to the county road the lane previously connected with.

At a gas stop in Gillette, I pulled up to the pump next to a guy with a dirt-modified stock car on a trailer. It was painted like the General Lee. When I told him that I lived near where they had filmed the first episodes of the Dukes of Hazzard, you would have thought that I'd told him I was the Queen of England. Instant royalty.

I'm currently in Sheridan, which is a nice enough town despite being named for a Yankee General, and will be heading for Ennis in a little while. According to Google, I've got 323 miles to go, a little less than 5 hours. Since I can't check in to the motel before 3:00, I'll get some breakfast, scrape the bugs off the windshield and fuel up before I depart. If I see something interesting along the way, I'll stop and take some pictures.

Speaking of pictures, I've posted nearly 200 from yesterday.

Stay well.