Yesterday

We lost cell phone coverage pretty quickly yesterday, and so the goal of posting pictures along the way went out the window pretty quickly.  It was an eventful, beautiful day, though.  We went west across South Dakota, and then dropped south into Wyoming through the Black Hills, and then a little bit west across Wyoming into Casper.  Along the way we saw some pretty incredible scenery and landmarks.  (Incidentally, the temperatures also climbed pretty steadily through the day, at least until the sun went down).

Some iphone pictures from the day...

Sioux Falls:




The famous Corn Palace of Mitchell, South Dakota (this brought back definite childhood memories):




The even more famous Wall Drug of Wall, South Dakota:




And Crazy Horse, which has undergone some significant changes since I've seen in last, about... 17 years ago.




We also stopped by Mount Rushmore, but I only took pictures with the real camera, and so I don't have any easy way of uploading them right now.

If you ever want unfettered access to any of these tourist sites, I recommend going on a weekday in January.  I don't think we actually saw any other tourists at any of these sites.  We had our own private viewing of the informational video about Crazy Horse Memorial.

Tim and I had a great time on the road yesterday.  The landscape was constantly changing, and absolutely beautiful along the entire drive.  Today the plan is to keep going through Wyoming, go through Salt Lake City (and visit the Salt Lake City Library, which is a building I've been really interested it), and then stop for the night somewhere near Winnemucca, NV.

The drive we made yesterday mostly retraces a trip that I went on in high school with my best friend Meredith and her family, and so it brought back lots of really good memories.   The drive we're taking today will retrace a trip that my mom and I made together when we were moving from Denver to Reno.  Lots more good memories.  Tim and I are having a great time making new memories together.

If we have signal along the way, I'll post, but I'm not expecting much...

Location:  Rawlins,United States

Pointing west

We took off this afternoon at around four. We've been imagining that moment for over a year, and it really was everything we hoped it would be. We got into our hotel just in time to catch the tail end of the state of the union address.

Tomorrow - Wall Drug, Mount Rushmore, and 10 hours or so of driving. We'll keep you posted...

Temp: 8 degrees
Mileage: 270 miles
Time on the road: 4.5 hours (ish)

Location:Sioux Falls,United States

Last weekend in Minneapolis

On this last Sunday in Minnesota, we spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how to watch the football game, since our TV is packed up on the truck. We have, unexpectedly, found ourselves to be Vikings fans.

The list of things we should have been doing was a long one, but yet... We found ourselves driving out to Best Buy, looking for some gadget to use our laptops to watch the game. We finally decided to go the low tech route and watch the game over a beer at a local bar. Now we've just got to hope for a win...

and so it begins...

The movers came and took our stuff away.

There's nothing quite so disorienting as watching packers come in and box up all your worldly possesions in a matter of hours. Although it's far preferable to doing it yourself.

If I had to guess, the truck's somewhere in Nebraska by now. In the meantime, Tim and I are camped out in the empty house. He's got a few more days at work here in Minneapolis, and then we'll be driving out on Wednesday afternoon.

Current temperature: 33 degrees F