I can't even begin to express the gorgeousness of our drive. Pictures definitely don't do justice. I am just so grateful for the opportunity to see (briefly) these parts of the country that I had never seen. The great big sky over Wisconsin - breathtaking.
Sunsets and sunrises. I can't even.
We took turns napping while the other drove. So that night Lexi drove till 12:30. While I drove and she napped, I finished To Kill a Mockingbird (love). when she started getting tired, we found a cute little truck stop right on the South Dakota/Minnesota border to take a quick nap. 6 hours later. Seriously! We slept for 6 hours! I was so surprised at us! We joked about how we were little homeless kids, changing and brushing our teeth in truck stops. It just worked for us. Crazy little traveling gals.
As soon as we got into SD, my phone did this. "No service." I didn't think it was a big deal, I figured it was probably just a dead zone, but then Lexi had service, and I still didn't. All day. It was so frustrating! That night I finally asked Matt to call sprint, and while he talked to them he'd text me instructions on Lexi's phone. They didn't work, and we were driving through dead zones, and then, like 10pm, it came back on. So weird.
Back to the day! Driving, driving, driving!
Amy said we had to stop at Wall Drug, and after seeing the billboards for hours, I was sold. It's a really cute story you can read about here.
we were pretty sure we had passed the SD welcome sign the night before, so that morning, while it was still a little dark, we walked on the side of the freeway to take our pictures. First, the SD sign is huge. Second, it's very reflective, so when you try to take a dark picture with a flash, the sign takes all the light. But we were there, rest assured.
When we had driven into Minnesota the night before, it was on a bridge and there was tons of construction. So there were no signs. As we hiked back to our car after our SD pics, we talked about turning around on the freeway and looking for the Minnesota sign on the other side. Then we saw it and thought, it's not that far, we can walk. So we frogger'ed it across the freeway! That might just be a first for me. We had to hike through wet brush in the middle of the freeway, and on the Minnesota side. All worth it.
Love these ones we took of eachother where you can see the sun coming up. The whole thing was just beautiful. And totally worth the hike.
The sun rising over South Dakota. No words.
We drove through several mini storms. This was like stormy on one side, completely blue and clear on the other.
http://www.walldrug.com
Ready to eat! We hadn't eaten a real meal for 24 hours.
We had to take our pics with our free ice water! You'll understand if you read the story.
We got the girls squished penny holders, and made them each a penny for their souvenirs. (:
After we ate and meandered, we took a quick walk around the backyard. These pics are terrible cause it was so bright, but the backyard was so cute.
Wall drug was named that for the town, not the family. And no relation to Walmart or Walgreens.
Mini Rushmore.
It was this morning that Lexi started to get super anxious to get to rexburg. After the car issues we kind of cut out the fun stops for that day. But then we made such good time, and the car stopped having problems, that I was ready to see some more fun things. But Lexi got like an old person that just wants to get back to their schedule, she just really wanted to get to school. So she was not loving all the picture taking.
Wall drug is like, a block long on both sides of the street. On a busy day they serve 20,000 people.
From there it was just about an hour to Mt. Rushmore. Up a windy mountain, and there she is! Much smaller than I thought it would be!
I imagined it would be the size of this whole mountain. I was really surprised.
It's so fun to see something in person that you've seen in movies and pictures a million times. This was pretty cool!
We walked downstairs (against Lexi's wishes) to the visitor center and another view.
She wouldn't let me watch the 14 minute movie ("I just really want to get there!") but I did make her take the .2 mile walk to Rushmore point. Mini rock you walk into and see the monument.
And a more up close view.
Then we were done. This was Lexi's birthday trip choice. And she would have been happy with a drive-by. Sigh.
The small towns around Mt. Rushmore were so cute! Again, pictures don't do justice, but we drove through more cute little towns than I've ever seen.
Another few hours, and bam! Forever west!
I drove for hours in Wyoming without seeing a single home or person (other than drivers). That is a desolate state. Miles and miles of nothing. It's pretty in its own way though.
I started listening to (and finished) The Maltese Falcon while Lexi napped. And 80 mph is a nice speed limit. It was driving through this sparseness that we hit another 24 hours, and another 1000 miles, again, almost exactly to the minute and to the mile. Weird. Another fun day of driving, a bunch of fun things we'd never seen, and lots of girl talking time. So fun!
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