Sunday- Are there cops in the west? Or is this speed limit (75) just a suggestion? (85 mph it is then!)

Michala:

Where to even start?  Today has been…interesting…I, Michala, have been failing in EVERYTHING that I do today.  Just call me the bull in the china shop! Taking off from Linnandy’s was a little delayed because I couldn’t drag my butt out of bed.  Brenna had to load the car by herself!  Oops…well, I was supposed to be the navigator but I wasn’t quite prepared and we missed the exit.  Oops.  This, caused us to drive an additional 15 minutes too far north.  We could have just continued on the path we were on but we decided that we would drive through South Dakota (thanks, dad and Meggie, for the suggestion!) we turned Lynette (Brenna’s mom van) around and headed south a tick. Naturally, we had to stop for some Caribou, man they make a mean breakfast sandwich! FINALLY, we made it out of Minneapolis, around 6 am….only a few hours late!  J  Once we got out of the city, it was smooth sailing! 

I didn't get very many pictures out of Minneapolis. It was pretty dark the whole time we were there...I'm waiting on Meggie to send me some pictures from that adventure...mine and Brenna's phones died on the way to the track!

In the span of the day, we have seen flat lands, rolling lands, pink lands, orange lands, dead lands, and BAD lands!  Talk about cool.  

they have dinosaurs in South Dakota!

This is just so cool!

The throwback music makes it even better!  As I said in a previous post, Angela Ervin packed us some awesome food for the road. Because Brenna started driving, I got to prepare breakfast!  Cheerios and fresh strawberries on top…with some dirt mixed in.  Not intentionally, of course! Apparently, I am just doubley left handed and knock everything over!  In the span of 5 minutes I managed to knock over our cereal cups, spill some milk, drop the camera, knock over the water bottles, tipped over the trash can, dropped our phones at least three times, lost the pen, and lost our spoons for the cereal…talk about a rough 5 minutes. Of course Gracie was happy about this because she got to eat all the strawberries and cheerios that ended up on the floor.  There were quite a few of them. 

We finally got to South Dakota…not sure what time, I forgot to look! It felt like we were driving through SD for forever!  Around lunch time we started seeing dinosaurs and signs for a place called Wall Drug.  We weren’t sure what that was but it sounded cool and there were about a million signs for it on the way out.  Not all it was cracked up to be...We stopped and took Gracie in with us...apparently they aren't as concerned with health department codes as they are in Illinois. We were a little worried about her being around all those people, but she did fine! She was pretty anxious, but she didn't growl at or bight anyone!  Good day.  We headed back to the car and Gracie started breathing like a crazy person.  Brenna was freaking out because she thought Gracie was dying.  She just got really over heated.  

We continued on driving for hours after hours. It was a long drive.  We stopped in a little town along the way called Deadwood.  We stopped at a restaurant with a patio so we could take Grace, little did we know, there would be live entertainment!  A fun little band played while we enjoyed our dinner.  It was a nice break from the car.

 

Not much else really happened on the way to Billings, MT. We arrived around 10pm at the Dude Rancher Lodge...Thanks mom. It was totally a "DUDE" Rancher. The sheets weren't even on the bed right. Gross. Brenna and I shared a double bed and let Gracie sleep on the other because it just didn't seem as clean...and she's a dog.  We DID check for bed bugs...we were more than a little concerned.

 FYI- The Glade was the best purchase of this trip….skunks, dog farts, nasty asphalt, it pretty much covers up everything!