First stop: Boise
In the weeks leading up to our last day in Sioux Falls, we slowly but surely sold or transported our surprisingly large number of things to be stored with friends and family while we live on the road. Unbeknownst to me, Faith is a magician at selling items on Facebook Marketplace, a skill which she honed pretty much full-time while I was at work. Hardly a day went by that didn’t feature several cash-only deals going down in the parking lot outside our complex, many of which I got to take part in. Eventually the day came for us to pack our remaining things and get them into Faith’s Nissan Rogue, a task which I thought impossible but Faith was confident would succeed. Aside from a pair of boxes that we rapidly realized would not fit and subsequently sent with a friend, Faith managed to utilize every square inch in a brilliant display of Tetris magic that somehow even left us with room to breathe.
On the morning of April 27th, we began the 20-something hour drive out to Boise amidst some morning showers. The first somewhat interesting stop we made was the 1880 Town in the middle of nowhere South Dakota to fill up on gas. While there, we met the people who own the town and learned a bit about the history of the place. When we walked back out to our car, I saw that the keys were on the dash and the doors were locked. I just about died… but thankfully Faith had the wisdom to grab the spare key and so we were not locked out only a few hours into our adventure.
After I collected myself, we continued on our way and stopped in the town of Wall, SD to have some breakfast and poke through the world-renowned Wall Drug. We found little of interest, not even a hat, and opted to make our next stop at the Museum of Geology in Rapid City, SD. Although it isn’t very large, the museum is free to the public and features a wide array of interesting minerals, rocks, and fossils.
On the drive to our next stop, Faith had what one might call a “nap attack”. She went from fully awake to unable to resist snoozing in the span of about two minutes, maybe less. So, I drove along in silence until we arrived at Jewel Cave National Monument, the first National Park/Monument/Preserve/etc. on our adventures. I woke a newly-rested Faith, and we headed inside to tour the cave. We have now been to both Jewel Cave and Wind Cave (only ~30 miles apart), and can confidently say that Jewel Cave is far larger and far more wondrous to behold if you’re planning on visiting the area.
After this, we drove to our lodgings in Big Horn, WY that featured an amazing view of the mountains and innumerable deer. Seriously, I’ve seen a lot of deer throughout my life, but I don’t think I have ever seen as many as I did during that half hour of driving. We stayed at an Airbnb run by a wonderful and fascinating couple that we were fortunate enough to spend the evening chatting with.
We awoke in the morning and ate the breakfast we had packed the day before: home-canned chili and homemade bratwurst. Now, we had made over 50 brats a couple weeks earlier, and in our desire to leave no waste, had eaten 1-2 brats every. single. day. from when we made them to when we left. We did a good job and the brats were tasty, but eating ANOTHER cold brat was hardly palatable. So, we dumped them and hit the road.
We continued on the next morning, stopping only at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument which conveniently runs directly against Interstate 90. We continued across Montana and took back roads through the mountains and even a small portion of Yellowstone National Park before heading across the Snake River Plain to western Idaho. If you’ve never taken US Highway 20 across central southern Idaho, well, you’re missing out… on an exceedingly flat and barren drive with nothing to block the tumbleweeds carried by the incessant wind. Thankfully, the scarcity of interesting scenery helped us to make solid progress on Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild which we read aloud to each other. Some have asked us if we aim to be like Chris McCandless, and though there may be parallels between us, we have no intent to abandon society for the Alaskan bush (…yet). If we do, we will at least bring a radio and map so we are a bit better prepared than he was.
After several more hours of driving, we arrived at the Wester’s and laid our eyes on our new (to us) Honda Odyssey for the first time.
Animals seen
- Bison (on the road)
- Elk
- Too many deer
- Sandhill Crane
Stats
- ~1400 miles of driving
- 2 National Monuments
- Too many brats