Enough anticipation??

If you voted South Dakota, you were right!



I can't really believe I gave up a free sofa, and added about four hours to my drive time for South Dakota. Was it worth it?

Sort of.

Driving through South Dakota is just about the easiest driving I've ever done. Its pretty much a straight shot, only occasionally do you pass another car or truck and with the speed limit at 75mph, you just fly on through - until it starts pouring. I drove through a pretty nasty storm, which slowed me down quite a bit. Once I got to the other side of the storm however; it was back to flying. Since I gave up my free sofa, I wasn't really sure where I was going to sleep. I wound up driving until I was nearly exhausted, then found a cheap motel (which actually turned out to be pretty fantastic!) in the middle of the state.

The next morning, I left the hotel, and began the journey to Mount Rushmore. Even though I had a long, long day ahead of me, I stopped at several lookout points, and an "1880 Town". Looking back, I pretty much went through South Dakota exclusively to see the monument - and it's not likely that I'll be going back again anytime soon. It's kind of a once and done deal. Drive up, pay $11, take a photo or two and leave. Still, I'm glad I can say I saw it.

When I left Rushmore, my goal was to get to Sheridan, Wyoming. But since I got such a great night's sleep at the motel (a pleasant change), I felt like I could keep going, so I decided to push through to Billings, then finally I decided that I should just head on towards my next "long term" location (by long term, I mean more than one night - actually, about a week), Bozeman, Montana. I got to Brandon's house around 11:30pm, because it was dark, I really didn't get a good look at Bozeman.

Yesterday, I was absolutely thrilled seeing the view from Brandon's parents place. It's absolutely beautiful here, and apparently, this view isn't all that great because of some forest fire smoke blowing in, and causing a haze over the mountains. After giving his mom a hand in their giant garden, we went for a walk to a waterfall in the mountains with his buddy Brett.

Unfortunately, I left my phone in his car (because girl shorts have terrible pockets and stuff falls out all the time), so I don't have any photos from the walk, but I promise, I'll be taking many more over the next week!

After we get me all set up on Skyrim (never played before, and video games have never really been my forte - this will be rather interesting, and I'm sure, hilarious to Brandon and Brett), Brandon and I will be headed into town, and this time, I'll definitely bring the phone for photo opportunities!