Lowlands, Highlands, and the Badlands

Map route

We woke up and drove north through Iowa into South Dakota. We headed west towards the Badlands Nat'l Park. Our first stop was a cowboy store in the middle of nowhere. We looked at buffalo hides and skulls and tons of fireworks. We got to see his domesticated bison in the fields. There was some strange animatronic machines that we put quarters into and watched some really creepy shows. At the store was Sturgis Motorcycle Rally stuff, we looked it up and the rally was going on this week. We decided we should check it out. All of the bikers on the road made a lot of sense now. We left the store and continued on, however it was getting late and I wanted to see the Buffalo Gap Nat'l Grasslands in daylight so we pulled off at a truck stop for the night.

The amazing sky at a rest stop

In the morning we drove through the grasslands, no buffalo in sight. We made it to Badland's Nat'l Park. It's a grassland with some rock formations/ canyons of beautiful reds and yellows. We hiked out into them and played around on some rocks. We stopped at the visitor center where we got to see some fossils being uncovered. When we finished at the Nat'l Park we drove to Wall, SD. We had seen billboards for Wall Drug since we got into South Dakota. We looked up Wall Drug to find that it was a huge store that had gained business by offering free iced water in a dry desolate area. We had to see it. The store is so large there is a map letting you know what each section has to offer. We browsed the various items before finishing up in a corridor full of taxidermy animals and strange statues. Out on the patio was an animatronic monkey and a huge Jackalope that I climbed onto its back for a picture. Two bikers that we saw yesterday at the cowboy store took a picture of me on the Jackalope. It was a little strange. We ended up in Rapid City for the night.

Alicia and Natalie frolicking through grasslands

Alicia at Badland's Nat'l Park

Nick at Badland's Nat'l Park

After a refill on ice we drove to Mount Rushmore. The drive was through lush green forests, we rounded a corner and saw the president's faces on the mountain side. After parking we hiked around the mountain and got to learn about the carving process. There were miniature faces that the carvers used for comparison. After leaving Mount Rushmore we drove south to the Wind Cave Nat'l Park and paid for the Fairground Cave Tour. We had to have our shoes "decontaminated" since we had been in another cave in the last 5 years We were in Ruby Falls cave just a couple weeks ago. Turns out there's this fungus outbreak on the east coast that is waking up bats from hibernation and causing them to leave the cave in search of food. The bats are dieing and it turned out Tennessee had a really bad outbreak. Ruby Falls is in Tennessee, so the rangers were really happy that we told them. After the shoe cleaning we walked on a 1 1/2 mile tour of the upper and lower level of the caves. There was some box work going on, it's where the limestone has gypsum in it that expands and contracts causing the limestone to crack. The cracks are filled with calcite and the limestone breaks away leaving a negative of the cracks. It looks just like a wasp nest and is really cool and a little too fragile looking to be making up a roof of the cave. We finished our tour and drove back to Rapid City for the night. We stayed at a campground after haggling for a lower rate since the rates were raised from Sturgis Rally. We spent the night watching Noah, a crazy movie with Russel Crowe and some cannibalism.

Alicia at Mount Rushmore

Alicia at Wind Cave Nat'l Park

After we got ready for the day we headed into downtown Sturgis to see all of the motorcycles. We walked through the biker crowded streets looking at all of the booths. We ate lunch, Natalie finally found a corn dog to celebrate her sister Kim's birthday. We stopped into a restaurant for the restroom and saw a lady passed out on the table. Not only was she out she was topless and her boobs were resting on the table as well. We left the restaurant to see more biker women wearing next to nothing. We went back to the motor home that we parked at the city park. We laid around on the grass looking at magazines and Nick went for a run through Sturgis. When he got back we cooked up some kabobs for dinner. After dinner we drove to Deadwood to go out with a friend. My friend from home, Cacia, happened to be in Sturgis working the rally. We went out to a karaoke bar where Cacia and her coworkers belted out rock and rap songs. We ended the night at a live band and danced the night away.

Sturgis, SD

Natalie and her corn dog

Alicia at Sturgis

Alicia and Cacia in Deadwood

In the morning we woke up and drove out of South Dakota to Wyoming. We drove through grasslands to the Devil's Tower National Monument. This was the first Nat'l Monument ever. The Devil's Tower is a large rock formation in the middle of grasslands. We hiked all the way around the tower, and we were able to see ladders bolted to the rock. The ladders had been there since the 1890's when the tower was first climbed. We drove on to Billings, MT for the night.

View off lookout near Devil's Tower

Alicia at Devil's Tower

Quote:
      "What if it's the there and not the here that I long for. The wander and not the wait, the magic in the lost feet stumbling down the far away street and the way the moon never hangs quite the same."

Heading out West

Map route

We woke early in Cleveland and headed to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I dressed accordingly, with a black bra top that was studded and had chains hanging off of it, and some tight brown leather pants. We got to the Rock Hall of Fame and took an intro picture of us looking like a rock band. We got to look around the museum at all of the guitars and clothing of some great rock stars. I really enjoyed Janis Joplin's hippy car. There was a section of modern pop stars and we got to see some of Beyonce's dresses which were amazing. When we finished the museum we went to the gift shop where some people took pictures with me because they loved the way I was dressed. Outside of the Hall of Fame we took a tour of Johnny Cash's travel bus. It was pretty awesome inside, definitely more spacious than our little dolphin. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was something I was really looking forward to but it paled in comparison to the Country Music Hall of Fame. The organization at the Rock Hall was lacking and made for a large eclectic mess. Still there was tons of cool stuff. When we finished at the museum we drove to Toledo, Ohio for the  night.

Natalie, Alicia and Nick rocking out at the Rock and Roll  Hall of Fame

Jimi Hendrix guitars

Led Zeppelin outfit/ guitar

Beyonce's costumes

As soon as we woke we drove to Chicago, Illinois; we drove through Indiana to Illinois. Once we got into Chicago it was really busy. Traffic was heavy and it had started raining. We came to the cause of traffic, a cement truck had tipped onto a car and smashed the driver's side- there was definitely no survivors as the truck was still on top of the car and they were working on lifting the truck up. We drove into the heart of Chicago where we miraculously found some outdoor parking that we could stay at for the night. After a nap we got some deep dish pizza at Beggar's Pizza then got ready for the night. After managing New York's subways we decided we could tackle Chicago and we rode the train to Michigan Ave to experience Chicago nightlife. Lollapalooza was going on the weekend we were there and had just got out so the streets were full of festival goers. We could only find small hotel bars and walked the streets until we settled at Miller's Pub. The bar was packed with people from Lollapalooza. We made our way down the bar to find an open seat. At the end of the bar some girl pointed at me and the guy sitting next to her offered his seat to me. I would have been sitting between the girl and her guy friend with the guy that gave up his seat standing behind me. I declined their offer and thought how weird it was. On the other side of those people were two seats available and a man at the very end gave his seat up to us. I sat closest to the group and they immediately turned and chatted with us. They had just come from Lollapalooza. The girl got up to leave and the guys asked if I knew her, I told them I didn't and obviously they didn't know her either. While we were chatting with the group we told them we were from NorCal and had been on a road trip for a month and half. One guy immediately asked if we knew where P-ville was, the old hangtown. All of our jaws dropped, no one knew where our small town was. Turns out this guy had family in P-ville and had spent his summers there while growing up. The guy told us he was from Connecticut and that growing up the girls he knew ranked about a 5. He said he thought hot girls only existed in movies and didn't think much of it until he came out to NorCal for the summer. He said "Holy Shit!! Every girl was hot as shit." He had wanted to live there and enjoyed his summer visits. We were all rolling at his story telling. He had many adventures to tell and told us some things to check out on the rest of our trip. The group of guys left, and then another guy sitting there scooted down to sit with us. He had also been at the festival and said he was coming down off acid. He said some really trippy things, he changed his name on us from Chris to Change. We just went with it. He was a bartender in Kentucky and got dragged out to Lollapalooza with some friends that he had lost earlier in the day. Another guy joined our group, Cory. He was a super muscular army man that was on his way back home. He talked just like Sylvester Stalone in Rocky. He gave us some movie quotes which was amazing!!! He said he had never seen the movies until everyone told him he talked like Rocky. We all got our fill of entertainment for the night and found our way back to the subway station and back to our motor home.

Pizza in Chicago

Nick and Natalie with friend in Chicago subway

We slept in a bit in Chicago then headed for Nauvoo, IL- a Mormon town on the Mississippi River. Along the way we ran out of gas :( and puttered into a rest stop. We were about 3 miles from the closest gas station so we asked some rest stop workers if they could help. They gave us 2 gallons of gas from the lawn mower gas can and we made it to the gas station to fill up. The hwy to Nauvoo crossed the Mississippi river into Iowa then back across the river to Illinois into Nauvoo. We checked into the campground and then drove into town. We walked the streets to the Mormon Temple and then down the hillside to the visitor center where we learned about the early settlers. We happened to be in town when the yearly pageant, a play about early Nauvoo, was going on. After eating dinner we sat in a huge field to watch the play. It was a highly technical play and you could tell had been practiced for a long time. It was very good and kept our interest the whole time. When it had ended we went back to the campsite. While laying in bed we could hear our neighbor's phone call where he was yelling at someone and threatening their job by saying he had connections. Then another phone call to his son telling him to throw our someones stuff and to piss on their pillows. The phone calls ended and we finally fell asleep, only to be woken in the middle of the night to the same man hacking for hours. It was probably the grossest sound I have ever heard. Finally we all fell asleep.

Joseph Smith and Hyrum statues outside of the Temple

Sunset over the Mississippi River in Nauvoo

A band playing at the Pageant in Nauvoo

We woke up and did laundry then headed into old Nauvoo. We got to see the old bakery and try some gingerbread cookies. We then went to the Family Living Center where we learned how to weave, make a barrel, do pottery, make rope, cook bread, and make a candle. We got to keep the rope we made and to eat some freshly cooked bread. After that we headed back to town to the real bakery for some pastries. Back in old Nauvoo we learned how the bricks were made and got a small Nauvoo souvenir brick. We drove along the trail of hope and read plaques of journal entries from the Mormons when they were escaping prosecution. We drove all the way to the Mississippi River where they crossed the frozen river and we put our feet into the Mississippi for the first time. Once we had finished up in Nauvoo we drove to Carthage to the prison where Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were murdered. We got the last tour of the day and got to see where they were held and murdered, with the bullet holes still in the door. After we finished our tour Natalie drove for a bit while I napped. When I woke up I took over the driving through Iowa where we stayed for the night in Des Moines.

Nick at the Mississippi River

Sun setting in Iowa

Quote:
     "The core of man's spirit comes from new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun." ~ Christopher McCandless