Day 1: Chicago to Mitchell, South Dakota
DeForest, Wisconsin. Emily, Asher, Evan, and big ol’ naughty-lookin’ udders.
Minnesota, land of 10,000 windmills (‘n barns)
Asher & Evan spinning Emily in a red tire thing in Minnesota
Asher and Evan steer a red wheel with intensity while Kelly (hey, that’s me!) looks pensive in the red tire thingy in the middle of Minnesota.
Rough ridin’ in Jackson, Minnesota at the Fort Belmont historic thingy.
Boisterous young lads make horseys cry.
Boys try their hands at plowing the soil at Fort Belmont.
Sunset over Main Street, Mitchell, South Dakota.
Hey, anyone want to move into an enchanted dollhouse? No, really? Because that wouldn’t be creepy or anything. (No really, I’m totally serious. The number is right there. Who wants to live in an abandoned doll castle with me?)
And of course, the Corn Palace. One of America’s Destinations.
Day Numero Deux: Mitchell, South Dakota to Moorcroft, Wyoming
Haystacks and a stream near Vivian, South Dakota
Emily is remarkably cheerful considering she’s about to be eaten by an enormous beast.
We escaped from the creature and arrived at the Badlands. I think we should rename them the Badasslands.
Ooooh, ahhhh. By the way, that shot was taken with my phone. Sometimes I hate my iPhone, like when it sucks at being a phone, but then it does stuff like that. All is forgiven. By the way, the above pic is way better if you click on it and biggify it.
I used to get mad at my Dad because he would take two pictures of me and twenty pictures of landscapes. Dad, I have become you. I revoke every snarky comment I ever made about how you were more interested in dirty hills and rocks and buildings than me. I totally get it. Dad, behold your daughter.
Oh look. Hills. Black Hills.
I don’t know if you knew this, but there’s like four presidents’ faces carved into rock. They’re like, really big & stuff. I heard something funny here: some girl said to some guy, “17 + 6 equals 21, dumbass.” Oh, America.
We’re in Wyoming! There’s Devil’s Tower! Also, Frank at the Devil’s Tower Lodge told us that those three humpy-lookin’ things over to the left are called the Missouri Buttes or something (too lazy to look it up, sorry). I remember the MO part was right. Yeah, MO! Both Em & I are native Missourians so this was just like coming home.
Here’s the view of the tower from Frank’s backyard. I was curious about that little shack over yonder but I didn’t investigate.
Day 3 on da road: Moorcroft, Wyoming to Missoula, Montana
Cozy Motel. Yes. Downtown Moorcroft, Wyoming. I tried to take a picture of a real live cowboy at the gas station. I didn’t get a shot. So no cowboy pic. If only you knew how tragic that really was.
Battle of Little Big Horn Monument in Montana. The black headstone is where Custer fell.
Poor horseys.
A rare sighting of pink leggings paired with a green hoodie in Montana…no wait…clueless teenager in the way of my shot of the Indian Memorial. Oh well, it wouldn’t have been a good shot anyways.
Rainbow somewhere west of Butte, Montana, the last stop before we hit Missoula. Did I mention I saw some kid get busted for stealing candy at a gas station in Butte? Well, I did. Poor kid. Anyway… Alas, we were so tired, we focused mostly on driving and not sightseeing, so we have few pix of the rest of Montana on the way there. This rainbow couldn’t have come at a better time though, because we were all verging on comatose. By the time we made it to Beth & Josh’s it was dark, and not ideal conditions for taking pix.
Jesus, this took forever.
