Day 25 - 8/12 - Finally Home

Home at last, construction on 80 really held us up.

And living where we do, a person forgets how far it really

is to the western border.

Hope you enjoyed our travels, we sure did!

Yes, he's being towed, but it really was kind of creepy.

Never saw a triple before........ guess we never drove in Ohio before

we must have seen about 50 of them after this one!

Ohio!

Day 24 - 8/11 - Homeward bound

Best room yet, Best Western in Howe, Indiana. Best bed, pillows, jacuzzi,

full breakfast, awesome shower... for $106 including tax!

White Sox stadium

Chicago, what a cluster, hit that at rush hour,

so instead of stopping we said get me outta here!

A huge milestone!

Missed the sign on the highway, had to go with the welcome center

Day 23 - 8/10 - homeward bound

Wisconsin

Storm's a brewing, scaredy Pants!

We actually drove right between two really bad storms, one of

which dumped 7 inches of rain in Iowa and caused all kinds of flooding,

along with golf ball sized hail

Minnesota

This one is for my kids, notice where the white line is,

mighty crooked too!

Daddy did it, and this from the man yelling I was crooked before I

ever put the car in park!

Our impromptu campsite in South Dakota

Day 22 - 8/9 - Badlands

Funny story, remember all the bikes in Black Hills?

We THOUGHT we'd be leaving them all behind. But NOOOO

it seems they come and go to all different areas out here,

so trying to get a room for the night anywhere in South Dakota

along the interstate was impossible.

Yes, we ended up camping, again. Pitching a tent

at 11PM, not my kind of fun. Small hotel just happened to have

some tent sites open, in the grass, along the interstate.

They had as many crickets as the Black Hills had bikes.

We did however get get another rainbow, and it was a double,

we just couldn't get back to the park fast enough to catch the second one.

This was our glimpse of the sun that day.

Once again our black cloud didn't let us down!

One thing we learned, never go into a national park without sub-way.

The photo doesn't capture the beautiful colors,

sand, gold and red

First look at the badlands

The Gordon Stockade

Illegal fort built on indian lands by Black Hills Gold seekers

They were found about a year after occupancy, and never did find much gold

The stockade has been rebuilt 3 times.

The above photo is an original cabin

Day 21 - 8/8 - Custer State Park, Mount Rushmore

Wonderful end to a busy day!

Crazy crazy road and tunnels.

An actual loop-d-loop bridge/road, pretty cool.

This up close you could really see how they did the eyes,

they looked amazingly life like.

George through a crevice in a cave

Remember the comment about the bikes?

We were in the midst of "Sturgis", bikers will know what I'm

talking about. 800,000 bikes expected in the Black Hills area.

And thats exactly where we were.

Now I have nothing against bikes, I've even been known to enjoy a ride

when the opportunity presents itself, but there is such a thing as

to many in one place. There was a cluster in Custer, made

me nervous to drive, they were EVERYWHERE!

The folks on them were very friendly, but man was my

heart racing having to drive and park with them all around.

Beggers!

Hike in a mixed grass meadow, I tried not to put to many

pictures in, but they sure were beautiful!

Saw lots of turkey, this one happened to have about 6 young ones

with her, missed them, hard to drive and shoot pictures, specially on

hairpin curves.

Wild buffalo, finally, they are much nicer looking than the farm raised.

Lots of Pronghorn Antelope, mama and baby

This guy walked right past our car, nice rack!

Camping again, we were lucky to find a site with the bike rally going on.

Second morning there, I came back from my shower to see a deer

and a turkey walking behind the tent.