Trip Wrap-up

Miles traveled: 5,390
Average fuel mileage: 36.15
States driven through: 16
Spent the night in:

• car (2 nights)
• Montrose, Colorado
• Tucumcari, New Mexico
• my parents' house near Mulberry, Arkansas
• my mother-in-law's house in Rolla, Missouri
• Paducah, Kentucky
• Nashville, Tennessee (2 nights)
• Belle Fourche, South Dakota

Observations:

• I still love to travel with that man of mine. We'd stay on the road full-time if we could, I think.
• I'd really love to make a "Route 66" road trip some year, following the old highway as much as possible all the way from Chicago to California. Getting off the interstate was so interesting to me.
• Simple, elastic wrist bands designed to help with motion sickness actually seem to work. I've worn them several times now as we've driven over winding mountain roads and haven't experienced motion sickness while wearing them. (And I'm usually susceptible to it.)
• Smaller, cheaper hotels are often more comfortable and friendly than the bigger, expensive ones.
• I feel sorry for the people who are taken with the over-the-top, lavish decor of the "world class" hotel where the convention was held. The indoor, faux river and waterfalls, while impressive, don't begin to hold a candle to the beauty of the western wilderness.
• It seemed weird for southern accents to be the norm rather than the exception at the convention. I could hear mine getting more pronounced as the weekend wore on. 
• The air in the South is soft and heavy. In the Northwest it's light and crisp.
• It's nice to visit the South, but even nicer to live in the Northwest.

Travel Stats: Day 10

Departed Belle Fourche, South Dakota: 7:45 a.m. MDT
Hours driven: 10:40
Miles driven: 791
Average speed: 74.1 mph
Fuel mileage: 32.4 mpg
States: South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho
Other VW Jetta wagons spotted: 2 (white, black)
Weather: heavy rains and wind through Wyoming and eastern Montana, which made it a little scary passing semis on the two-lane
Read-Aloud: the first few chapters of Trim, Healthy Mama by Serene Allison and Pearl Barrett
Car Talk podcast: 2 episodes
Also listened to: yesterday's sermon
Arrived home: 6:00 p.m. PDT

Happy to be safely home! I'll post a trip wrap-up next, just for the record.

Travel Stats: Day 9

My fans (a.k.a. my kids and my mother) are complaining because I haven't been keeping up with my blog. I hate to disappoint anyone, so here is today's update.

Departed Nashville, Tennessee: 9:08 p.m. CDT.
Hours driven: 19.5
Hours slept: 4.5 (in the car just east of St. Louis)
Miles driven: 1,332
Average speed: 68.3 mph
Fuel mileage: 36.4 mpg
States: Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, South Dakota
Other VM Jetta wagons spotted: 1 (It was black. At a gas station. I asked Lyle if he sang the Veggie Tales song, I Like Your Car, to the other guy. He said no, but they did exchange pleasantries. I think he should have sung, don't you?)
Weather: overcast with scattered showers throughout the day
Audio book: The Harbinger by Jonathan Cahn
Lum and Abner MP3: 1 episode
Also listened to: highlights from Indy 500 qualifying, Laugh USA, and enLighten on Sirius radio
Arrived Belle Fourche, South Dakota: 7:57 p.m. MDT.
Monday's destination: Home again!

From the Passenger Seat

Views from last week's road trip...

Heading east on I-90. Montana.

My drivin' man.

State capitol building. Jefferson City, Missouri.

Springtime in the Ozarks.
(No doubt the picture would be better had
the photographer bothered to roll her window down.)

(But it was raining! What can I say?)

See the "QT" on the road sign to the right?
We like to stop at those in Missouri/Kansas/Oklahoma.
They have an awesome beverage selection!

Worlds of Fun. Kansas City.
Since Laura got a job at our local theme park this year
we thought she might be interested to see this one.

Headed back home. Iowa sunset.

South Dakota was cold with fresh snow on the ground.

Watch out for that bulldozer!
Can you imagine driving the thing up there like that?

Last gas stop. Livingston, Montana.
Love the mountains in the background!

Travel Stats for Tuesday/Wednesday

Continuing this week's whirlwind travelogue...

Time in Missouri with family for Dad Cook's funeral: not quite 21 hours.
Departed Missouri Military Cemetery at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri: 1:45 p.m. CDT on Tuesday.
Hours driven: 27.5
Hours slept: 3.5
Miles driven: 1,783 miles [I drove twice coming home for a total of about 200 miles while Lyle slept a little more. Otherwise, he did all the driving.]
Average speed: 64.4 mph
Fuel mileage: 33.4 mpg
States: Missouri, Iowa, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho
Time zones: 3
Wildlife spotted: Not much on the way home. Saw a dead skunk on the road, but I guess roadkill doesn't exactly count as wildlife, though, does it? Saw a squirrel at a rest area.
Weather: rain in Missouri for about the first 6 hours yesterday afternoon, very cold with snow on the ground in South Dakota through the night, snow flurries in eastern Montana this morning, warm and sunny across central and western Montana this afternoon.
Audio books: finished The Racketeer, started Forbidden by Ted Dekker.
Car Talk podcast: 2 episodes
Other audio: Sunday's sermon from our home church, Sirius radio channels-- Road Dog, Radio Classics, Laugh USA, Enlighten.
Arrived home: 7:00 p.m. PDT on Wednesday.
Thursday's destination: Redmond, Washington for the Christian Heritage conference.

Travel Stats for Monday

Departed Sioux Falls, South Dakota: 7:30 a.m. CDT
Hours driven: 9.5
Miles driven: 592
Average speed: 62.3 mph
Fuel mileage: 35.2 mpg
States: South Dakota, Iowa, Missouri (also within spitting distance of Nebraska and Kansas)
Time zones: 1
Wildlife spotted: rabbit... cows, horses... oh, wait! Those aren't wildlife. Never mind.
Weather: rain, sunshine
Audio book: continuing The Racketeer until the battery died on my MP3 player
Car Talk podcast: 1 episode
Arrived Rolla, Missouri: 5:00 p.m. CDT.
Tuesday's destination: unknown (will be headed back home, after the funeral, as far as we can go before we need to stop to sleep)

Travel Stats for Sunday

Here's a map of our route for the first part of this week. And because these are the kinds of stats Lyle likes to have a record of...

Departed Post Falls, Idaho: 9:00 p.m. PDT

Hours driven: 18

Hours slept: 4

Miles driven: 1,200

Average speed (not counting sleep time): 66.7 mph

Fuel (not gas) mileage: 34.8 mpg

States: Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota

Time zones: 3

Wildlife spotted: deer, antelope, brown bunnies

Weather: rain, snow flurries, sunshine

Audio book: The Racketeer by John Grisham

Car Talk podcast: 1 episode

Arrived Sioux Falls, South Dakota: 9:00 p.m. CDT.

Monday's destination: Rolla, Missouri.

Good-night, John Boy!

Sunshine...

... on the South Dakota prairie. Still driving...

South Dakota

 It's been a long day-- 14.5 hours on the road. Needless to say, our stops have been short. We have enjoyed talking, reading, listening to audio books, working puzzles and watching the scenery as we drove.

 Since it's still technically winter, the landscape is mostly gray and brown and bare. But the sky was beautiful in western South Dakota late in the day. I snapped these pictures of our "rig" and our seemingly tireless driver at a rest area.

 A few minutes later the sky began to change colors as the sun set. I took these pictures from the car window as we drove.

It was about 10:30pm CST when we got to our motel in Mitchell. We left home last night and we've already lost 2 hours. Our itinerary for tomorrow calls for about 12 hours on the road.

See you along the way!

Sight-Seeing in South Dakota

Today we hit several of the main "tourist attractions" along I-90 in South Dakota. We have traveled this route many times, but we usually don't take time to stop for sight-seeing. We did this time just to help break the trip up a little.

First up was the Corn Palace in Mitchell. We were interested to learn that the exterior is redecorated every year with several varieties of corn. We laughed to see the birds pecking kernels right off the building!
There were several permanent corn murals inside. I guess the birds (and the weather) can't get to those, so they don't have to be replaced every year.
Further down the highway we stopped at the "world famous" Wall Drug. Why is it world famous? Why, because it is advertised all over the world as being world famous! We even saw one billboard bragging that they have a sign in Kenya, Africa. Now, doesn't that just make you want to go there?
Our final destination for the day was Mt. Rushmore. We timed it so we could be there for the evening program and lighting ceremony.
It was a beautiful, cool evening. The perfect ending to a fun day.

Relaxing in South Dakota

The past week has been a whirlwind of fun family activities. Not only that, we haven't had good internet access most of the time, so I am a few days behind in keeping you updated on our road trip. We got to our RV park this evening in time to relax a bit before bed time, and we have a good internet connection so I'm going to try to get caught up on my posting. I am going to back-date my posts, though, for my own purposes, so you'll have to read "backwards" to catch up with us! I hope it won't be too confusing!

The weather here is perfect! Sunny, gently breezy, and just mildly warm. Hope you're enjoying your summer wherever you are!

South Dakota

From Jamestown, North Dakota we headed south to South Dakota on a two-lane highway. This is the first time we've traveled off the interstate since we left home. We like getting off the beaten path, so that was an enjoyable drive. As we came in Aberdeen, South Dakota I noticed a billboard advertising Storybook Land. The billboard said it was free, so we decided to stop and see what it was. I didn't expect much but thought it might be a fun place to stretch our legs. Much to our delight, it turned out to be very cute and very well done... especially to not charge an admission fee. Our kids are little old for story book characters, but they had a blast posing with the various scenes and climbing around on the slides and other playground equipment built into the scenes. One feature of the park was a "Land of Oz" section. Just a lot of fun for an unplanned stop!

We were interested to visit De Smet, Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House on the Prairie" but were disappointed how overpriced the tour was. We decided on the self-guided (free) tour. I know we didn't see as much as we would have if we had paid $30 for our family to be taken through the buildings, but I don't appreciate being taken advantage of! We did visit the Ingalls homestead and took pictures of the cottonwood trees that "Pa" planted (which is all that remains in witness of the Ingalls ever living there). We also visited the cemetery and took pictures of the Ingalls family graves.

Tomorrow we plan to visit another Little House site in Walnut Grove, Minnesota. Wonder if it will be a dud, too? Oh, well... roadtrips are an adventure, and there's always something interesting to see along the way!

Today's weirdest sight: A stray bull casually strolling through a small cemetery in a small town we drove through!