Black Hills to Buffalo Bill Town

Wednesday August 22: Today we left the Black Hills with the intention of camping near Greybull, WY in the Big Horn National Forest. The drive through western Wyoming wasn't too exciting, but once we got to the National Forest it was absolutely beautiful and the rock formations were amazing. Once again there were areas where cows were allowed to roam free so I took more pictures of that. We also saw several Prong Horned antelope running around which was really cool. Unfortunately, once we arrived in Greybull it started to rain and there was thunder and lightning. We listened to the weather report which predicted more rain and thunderstorms for the night, and decided to continue driving west and try to find a hotel in Cody, Wy. We made it to Cody around 5 PM and found a hotel close to the downtown area. Cody was founded by Buffalo Bill Cody so there are a lot of museums and historical things about that, and the main street has a lot of western themed shops which we took a look at. Now we are back at the hotel and will go to bed early so we can get an early start tomorrow. Luckily we are pretty close now to the entrance to Yellowstone (about 60 miles I think), so if we get there early in the day we will hopefully be able to find a campsite. So, it looks like there won't be a lot of wireless internet available in Yellowstone (although you never know because they had it at campsites in the Black Hills...) so if not then we will hopefully be able to post again when we get to Idaho on Friday.

More South Dakota Pics

Here are more pictures from the Black Hills, including ones of Jeff teaching me how to fly fish.

South Dakota

Tuesday August 21: Yesterday we drove from Sioux Falls to the Black Hills of South Dakota. Along the way we stopped at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD which was an extremely cheesy tourist trap and had the slogan "the world's only corn palace," which makes you wonder why they thought the world really needed a corn palace to begin with...But, it was fun stop and see it and laugh at the people who were taking it seriously. We also bought some cool hats there. After that we continued on through South Dakota, where the speed limit finally went up to 75 mph which was nice. The drive was pretty boring and flat as you would expect going through the plains, but once we got to the western end of the state the landscape really changed a lot. All along I-90 in South Dakota there is a place called Wall Drug that has billboards every few miles advertising different things that it has there (such as food, western wear, souvenirs, etc.). They have so many of these billboards that it really makes you start to wonder what kind of place this is, so of course we stopped there as well. It is in Wall, SD which is right near the Badlands, and it is also extremely touristy but fun. It looks like an old west type of town and there were cowboy boots and belt buckles for sale everywhere. So, we ate lunch there and walked around a while and then got back on the road to go to the Black Hills. We decided to camp at a site in the Black HIlls National Forest, which meant that it was really far from anything and a little bit tricky to find. To get there we drove on a windy back road and saw tons of deer which was really cool, as well as free roaming cows that liked to stand in the middle of the road. The highlight of the drive was seeing a huge bull elk cross the road a bit ahead of us and run of the side of the hill. Neither Jeff or I had ever seen an elk so it was really an amazing sight. Once we got to the campground we found that it was absolutely gorgeous. The Black Hills are so beautiful, which the pine forests on top of the reddish rock, and our campsite was really in the middle of the forest. There was also a creek that ran along it and Jeff saw a rainbow trout in there but didn't have time to do a whole lot of fishing. After we left that campsite we drove into Deadwood, an old gold rush town that is now geared a lot towards tourists and even has a gun fight re-enactment ever so often during the day (which we did see). We decided to stay in the Black Hills again tonight, but this time at a different campground. So tonight we are staying at the Fish n' Fry, where you can catch some trout in their pond and then they cook it up for you, and it is just outside of Deadwood. We set up our tent and stuff and then went into Deadwood to explore and take pictures, and it turns out that a lot of the businesses there are casinos, which was interesting to see on the main street of a town. Some of the buildings were cute and old-looking but other than that it was just casinos and shops selling Black Hills Gold. So now we are back at our campground relaxing, and might go try to fly fish at a lake that we saw just down the road from us. Tomorrow we will be going to Yellowstone area, and will just have to wait and see what is available to determine where we go (we are expecting it to be pretty busy at this time of the year...) I'm not sure if we will be able to get internet near Yellowstone, so if not we probably won't be able to check back in until Friday because we plan to stay there for two nights. We will definitely write more when we can!

Rain, Rain Go Away

Sunday August 19: As I mentioned before, we stayed in a hotel in Madison last night, which was definitely good timing because it rained really hard all night. When we woke up this morning it was still raining, so we had our continental breakfast and then got ready to hit the road. Since it was such awful weather we decided not to go into downtown Madison which I was disappointed about, but we really wouldn't have been able to walk around or do anything. However, we did stop at a cheese store in Wisconsin which made me very happy, both because I love cheese and also because I felt like we did what you're supposed to do when you go to Wisconsin. We drove through Wisconsin and then at the border between Wisconsin and Minnesota we crossed the Mississippi River, so we stopped at an information center to check it out and take some pictures. (We also saw the Jolly Green Giant when we stopped for gas in a town called Blue Earth, MN.) We then continued through the southern part of Minnesota to Sioux Falls, SD. It took around 6.5 hours, partly because it was really stormy during the drive through Minnesota. I am posting pictures that we took to try and show how dark the clouds were for a while, but basically throughout the drive it would just start to absolutely pour and would rain so hard that we could barely see anything (the picture at right is the view out the windshield). Neither of us have ever seen rain like that (even in Oregon haha) and we had to just slow down and put our hazard lights on so that other cars could see us until the rain stopped for a while, and then did the whole thing over again. But, we made it safely to Sioux Falls at around 5:30 (central time) and went straight to Falls Park, which is what the city is named after. It was really pretty there but we couldn't spend too much time because we had to figure out sleeping arrangements for tonight. We were a little nervous to camp tonight because there is a good chance of rain and thunderstorms due to the weather system that we got caught in today, so we decided to stay in another Super 8 since it's cheap and allows dogs. The one we're at is pretty close to the downtown area so hopefully we can walk around a bit tomorrow and go back to Falls Park before we leave for the western part of the state. I also wanted to mention for my mom and dad (Renate and Mark) that I am a block away from the biggest antique mall in South Dakota so I am planning to check that out tomorrow morning :)

Cleveland to Madison (and all the stuff in between!)

Saturday August 18: We spent around 3 hours in Cleveland yesterday and thought that it was a very nice city, and that the people were really friendly. Even though it is a landlocked city, the size of Lake Erie makes it feel like you are right on the ocean. After leaving Jodie "action" Jackson in Cleveland we drove another 2 hours to East Harbor State Park (still in Ohio) to camp along Lake Erie. It was a nice place, very clean and comfortable and had a path right along the lake (see pictures below). There was a specific section of the campground for pets, so Nika was surrounded by lots of dogs to keep her busy. As always Nika was very popular, especially with all the kids at the campground. There were tons of RV's at this campground as well, and it's hard not to be a little jealous sometimes of the luxuries they have in those things. We left East Harbor around 11 am today to head to Madison, WI, and it turns out we were in for quite a long day. Leaving Ohio we first had to pass through Indiana and then Illinois before reaching Wisconsin. We had thought of possibly trying to drive through a bit of Chicago just to see the city, but as we got close it started to pour and there was a ton of traffic so we decided we'd better keep going. I did take some quality pictures of it as we drove past (pathetic I know)...it looks like a cool place so hopefully someday we can actually visit it. So after inching along in the traffic for a looong time we made a wrong turn (actually got onto the wrong freeway...) and that ended up costing us probably an hour or more in driving time. That was unfortunate, plus it started to absolutely pour again, so then we had to drive slower and that was frustrating. Anyway, we finally made it to Madison and found a hotel to stay in (that allows Nika) and it has free wireless internet, which is why I am able to write this now. We were sooo happy to finally get here, and are very excited to sleep in a bed and have running water after 4 nights of camping. The other good news is that apparently we crossed a time zone somewhere so now it is one hour earlier, which will work in our favor for getting an extra hour of sleep. Ok that's all for now, tomorrow we are headed to Sioux Falls, SD, but we'll have to wait and see what the weather does to determine if we'll be camping or finding a hotel. Goodnight everyone!

Niagara Falls, Girard PA

Thursday August 16th: We left early (7 am) from Watkins Glen so that we could visit Niagara Falls and still get to our campsite in PA early enough in the day. We didn't spend a whole lot of time at the falls because we wanted to keep moving, but we did walk around for a bit and get some nice pictures. It was really amazing to see up close just how big it is, and we wished we could go over to the Canadian side to see a different angle. After that we drove about 2 more hours to Girard, PA which is just past Erie. Our campsite was right along a creek and it is known for its steelhead trout run in the fall. Unfortunately the run isn't for two months. I did catch a few small smallmouth bass and sunfish. Emily caught her first fish on the fly rod, which was outstanding! It was a little strange though because we were the only people at the campsite who weren't in an RV, and one of few who don't live there at least part time. We left the campsite at 11 this morning (Friday) and drove 1 hour to Cleveland, OH where we are now sitting with Jodie (Action Jackson) at an Au Bon Pain. Now we are off to find a place to camp tonight, probably either along Lake Erie or in Indiana along Lake Michigan. Thank you everyone for all the comments, we'll check in again soon!