Trip across the country

I have made it safely to New York. It took 5 days and a small amount of site seeing to make it here. Let's just say I feel asleep when I got here I fell asleep on the couch while my two sisters were visiting, and most embarrassing of all I fell asleep at Spamalot the next day. I thought it was funny, but couldn't keep my eyes open.

Day 1: we left Astoria at 6:30 am on August 17th.
We drove to Alberton, Montana where we camped next to a beautiful river. I slept in a tent and Tammy (my sister) slept in the back of my beetle. Let just say Tammy wasn't really interested in doing that again. You can see us here sitting in the back watching a movie to pass the time before we hit the sack.

Day 2: We left Alberton early in the morning and drove to West Yellowstone, Montana. We drove into the park and drove to the group of geysers. We made two stops. The first stop was beautiful and it felt more the way Yellowstone should feel, no giant lodges. Just 500 other people and the scenery. Then we headed to Old Faithful. Unfortunately we were not able to see Old Faithful go, but it was still neat. I got some pretty cool t-shirts. After we ate our home made sandwiches we took off for our next stop. Our goal was to reach Custer, South Dakota that night.

We took a really beautiful drive through Yellowstone. We saw one buffalo that was walking next to my car. It was HUGE. I told Tammy if that thing wanted to ram the beetle it would smash it. The bison would defiantly have won. We felt very tiny compared to that beautiful animal. Unfortunately we were not fast enough to get a picture. We drove around a large beautiful lake and saw a bear on a hill eating possibly berries. It was fun to see one that close.

On our drive through Wyoming at around 8:00pm after stopping for some really, really, and I mean really bad Mexican food I decided that it wasn't safe driving in the dark. I was getting tired and I saw two really large bucks on the side of the road. They were standing just off the shoulder. One had at least 5 points (hard to tell going 75 mph) but it was a good size rack. I didn't think it would be wise to hit one in my little car. We found a hotel room at around 9:30 pm to sleep for the night.

Day 3: We woke up early, because we wanted to stop at Jewel Cave that morning and Mt. Rushmore while taking our drive across this beautiful nation.

Jewel Cave is just outside of Custer, SD. I realized on our drive to Custer that morning that I am glad that we didn't try to make it all the way the night before. The road to Custer was a two lane winding road once we got off of I-90. We would of been more likely to hit a large roaming animal in the dark.

We arrived at Jewel cave at 8:00am and the tours didn't begin till 9:00am so we wandered around a bit till they let us in the tourist center. We watch a quick film on the discovery of the cave and the couple who had spent so much time finding new caverns. We took an hour tour that takes you deep into the ground on an elevator (the only way in and out).

This cave is unique in that it is the 2nd longest cave in the US at 143.3 miles long, and they are discovering new caverns everyday. They claim that it is most likely only 1/3 of it has been mapped. The velocity of the air pressure going through the cave means that there are miles of cavern. They said it is possible that it could one day be declared the longest cave.

The cave is covered in crystals. The man who discovered it originally was hoping that he had found precious jewels but they are a form of calcite crystals and are very soft to the touch. It was beautiful and definitely worth a stop for a couple of hours. Here is the website for the national park http://www.nps.gov/jeca/

After Jewel Cave we headed for Mt. Rushmore. We got to glimpse the Crazy Horse monument from the road. We decided not to stop still since it is still a work in progress.

Mt Rushmore was a quick stop. It was kind of like National Lampoons Vacation where Chevy Chase walks up to the edge of the Grand Canyon and looks with his head bobbing up and down briefly and says, "Lets go!" We stopped long enough to eat our lunch and take a couple of pictures and get me some over priced ice cream. Then it was on the road again.

We drove through some amazing landscapes. I had no idea that South Dakota was so beautiful. I would definitely go back some day and stay a while longer. We made it to Sioux Falls that night at 7:30pm. We watched a little of the Olympics, ate dinner and went to bed.

Day 4: When we left the morning of day 4 I put our days destination into the GPS and it was taking us back 10 miles and along I-90 going through Chicago. I really didn't want to go through Chicago. I was hoping to go around and miss the traffic. Well by the time we figured out the way it was taking us I needed to find an alternate route. So we decided to take I-35 through Iowa. When Tammy and I spoke with my mom, she told us we had to stop in and see her Aunt Audry.

Audry is our grandmothers sister. So my mom called her aunt and told her that we would be drive through the area, and would she be up for a visit. She asked us to stop by, so we were planning on having lunch with her. Well lunch turned into dinner and we ended up staying the night. It was fun to see where my grandmother grew up and visit with Aunt Audry. Audry drove us through corn fields to show us the farm that she and Marvin raised their kids on and then over to the farm that Audry and my Grandma Ginny grew up on. I have moved so much that I don't feel like I really have any roots, but it was neat to go somewhere and see where 4 generation of my family lived and died. It was the best part of our trip.

Day 5: We woke up and had breakfast with Audry and then hit the road again. We made it to Pennsylvania and stayed the night somewhere along I-80. Pennsylvania is also another beautiful state. I will have to go back some time soon.

Day 6: I HATE the GPS! We finally arrive in Nanuet at around 2:00pm in the afternoon. The GPS tells us to exit, and turn right then turn right again. The exits in New York are right next to streets and are sometimes part of the road. I wasn't sure where it was taking us, but as soon as I realized it was taking us back the way we came I began looking for an exit to correct our course. The GPS had taken us in heavy traffic 45 minutes out of our way. We finally made it safely and I fell fast asleep.