Photos...as promised!

I am really proud of these pictures. It's not a lot -- mostly wildlife and scenic pull off areas, but I like to think they came out awesome! My favorite is the picture of the single buffalo alone. He walked up, about 10 feet from the car, and stood that way for a while. It was almost like he was just trying to let me take his picture so he could move on. He wouldn't even turn around so the car behind him pulled up to take pictures. They finally gave up and moved on, but he would not stop looking at my car. I was finally able to pull off that shot with all the tourists around! As soon as I had the shot, put the camera away and started driving, the buffalo turned and walked off. Apparently he didn't want anyone else to take his picture. Click the image below to go to flickr and see the full size photos!

So much drama, so little time...in South Dakota

Good evening! I think I’ve put this off long enough: detailing the drama surrounding South Dakota. Oh man…where oh where to begin?? This is a long one. You better make sure you have some time. Not kidding -- you’ve been warned.

Scenic overlook on my way to St. Cloud, MN:

The drive out was fine until I got to Chicago. My intention was to take 39 Northbound and just steer clear of it. What happened instead was I caught 94 Northbound straight through downtown Chicago during the start of rush hour at 3 p.m. Yikes! When I got out of Chicago, I drove and drove in miles of backed-up traffic. I then managed to find myself in Milwaukee caught in more traffic and construction. Oh my goodness the construction! I couldn’t even find a proper exit to take a bathroom break and get gas. Not fun.

The next time I got turned around was in Minneapolis when TomTom sent me via the bypass so I wouldn’t be going straight through downtown. I really wouldn’t have cared if I went downtown considering it was at 11 p.m., but what does TomTom know? So I’m attempting the bypass, but my maps haven’t been updated in TomTom since I got the unit four years ago. Apparently a lot has changed since then because exits were not exactly clear. I finally got back on the right path and made it to St. Cloud, Minnesota by 1:30 a.m. Friday morning.

Just before the trip, on July 6 (while I was geocaching), my friend Kelly called me to inform me she could not go on the trip. It was mostly due to financial issues and not being able to take the time off work, but it was only a minor change in plans for me. I was originally going to stay in Minneapolis, Minnesota with Kelly for a night and then get TaLeiza Friday morning. Well, Kelly had some friends over just prior to my trip and got in trouble for a party they had so I was not allowed to stay the night at her place. She’s no longer permitted to have overnight visitors. Again, only a minor issue for me because I was able to stay at TaLeiza’s place without a problem.

Scenic overlook on the way to Hermosa, SD:

The drive to Hermosa, South Dakota from St. Cloud was awesome. We had great scenery coming down 23 from St. Cloud, and we loved the rolling hills we saw on our way through South Dakota. Our arrival was great, too! We set up the tent relatively easily and got settled in just before dark. Seriously…JUST before dark. We barely had enough time to take a couple pictures before sun down.

That night was scary though. We woke up at 5 a.m. with the tent blowing in toward us. Mind you, the tent stood its ground. I really am quite proud of it. It survived a severe thunderstorm with some small hail (not even a tear in the rain fly!!), but I wasn’t taking any chances. TaLeiza and I went to Flying J up the road for breakfast. They didn’t open for another half hour, but took our order for breakfast anyway. Great people! We were just riding out the second storm that was coming through while we ate breakfast and waited for the office to open at 8 a.m.

As soon as the office opened Saturday morning, we grabbed up a cabin. And that has been a blessing since I booked it! We’ve had a line of severe thunderstorms rolling through including a REALLY windy one (during a tornado watch - scary). But things cleared up Saturday. We got settled into the cabin and then headed out to Mount Rushmore. On the way, we ended up a little lost because we missed one of the signs and I forgot my map and didn’t turn on TomTom (I’m apparently not THAT good at navigating myself). We were suddenly driving Needles Hwy which was awesome to see, but I was frustrated because we were a little lost and my car was suddenly making this horrid screeching noise. That was definitely not good news.

Me at Mount Rushmore:

We went to Mount Rushmore, saw the monument (awesome!) and then wanted to get something to eat so we ate at the Carver’s Café. It wasn’t anything terribly delicious, but it was food. I had bought a regular cheeseburger and a bison burger just in case I didn’t like the bison burger. Well, I ate all of the Bison burger and had no interest in the cheeseburger. I sat with it a while hoping I could just give it to someone (the thing was $7…you don’t honestly think I was going to just throw it away, do you?!).

Well, wouldn’t you know it? I noticed a couple sitting with their children. The kids were eating chips and milk. The woman had gotten up to ask the workers where the “locals” go to eat. They suggested Keystone, and I saw the disappointment in her face. Keystone isn’t terribly far from the monument, but I’m sure the kids were just being hungry kids and not fun for the parents. I grabbed her attention and asked if she’d like the cheeseburger I wasn’t going to eat and hadn’t touched. Her face lit up, asked if I was sure and then split it between the kids. The little girl was just devouring it! I was glad to help :)

[Side note: Mount Rushmore is also a Terracache...if you're into that. I just happened to have had TaLeiza take a picture of me with my GPS at the site and didn't realize it was a virtual until I was looking at the Terracaching Web site today. What luck!]

We left Mount Rushmore, got turned around again (Are we seeing a pattern here? Ugh!) and the noise on my car just got worse. I pulled off the side of the road, started looking under my car where I heard the noise, and it smelled like something was starting to burn. Great. I called my dad who didn’t answer, then I got in my car and called my mom. Now I’m in tears. My car is making noise and I don’t know what’s wrong with it. O! M! G!

My mom suggested I get to the nearest town (Keystone) and ask for the closest auto mechanic. I did just that by stopping at a little coffee shop, but after calling several auto mechanics from the phone book with no one answering (It was 5 p.m. Saturday), I'm now bawling and I had to figure out what else I could do. I couldn’t go home with my car sounding like that. And I couldn’t even go back to St. Cloud. It was bad. I’m stuck until Monday…TaLeiza and I had to be on the road early Monday morning to get her back to work on time for Tuesday morning. This is quickly turning into a big mess.

We got into the car to head back to the campground. However, when I turned on the GPS...what's that funny icon? WAIT! There's a GEOCACHE here! It was about 100 feet from the car and totally changed my mood. Read the log here.

We made it back safely and in telling the campground owners what was going on, I suddenly had a slew of help. A couple of the guys took my drivers side tire off to see what the heck was up. Brakes and rotors are bad. The campground also extended my stay through Friday for me. I figured I might as well stay and enjoy the things I wanted to see.

We decided it would be best to book TaLeiza a bus ticket to get back to Minneapolis where I then had my friend Kelly pick her up and take her home to St. Cloud. But in booking the bus ticket, you had to print the boarding pass and I had no printer…only the laptop. We were originally going to get her on the bus Sunday morning, but that didn’t work. Monday it was. We had to have the campground owners take care of the bus ticket for us too. Seriously. These guys helped us out a lot here! TaLeiza and I then decided we’d go back to Mt. Rushmore for the lighting Sunday night, which was awesome.

Monday morning came. I dropped TaLeiza off at the bus station, grabbed breakfast and went to get my car fixed. The brakes on the driver’s side fell apart as soon as they took them off (definitely not good) and the rotors were cut up pretty bad. The auto shop got me in within 20 minutes of my arrival. I took Monday to relax, nap and hang out. I cleaned the cabin, got some groceries and went to bed early.

The welcome sign at Wind Cave National Park:

Then today came. This trip is looking up! I slept in a bit, considering I hadn’t slept in at all on this trip due to traveling and storms, showered as soon as I got up and then got on the road to the Wind Cave at Wind Cave National Park. On the way I saw buffalo, pronghorn and prairie dogs. Now I feel like I’m in South Dakota! I did the earthcache at Wind Cave, took the Natural Entrance tour (amazing!!) and then went along my way.

My next stop was the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, South Dakota. WOW is all I have to say about that. It was so cool to see them excavating the bones and fossils. I bought a t-shirt there as well as their video of the tour and downstairs laboratory. My plans for the video is to turn it into a travel bug. I REALLY hope it doesn’t go missing for me. I won’t be replacing it if it does. As soon as I get home, I’ll activate it and probably release it at my mom’s event in Conneaut on July 25.

I took the long way back to the campground coming north on 89. On the way back to the campground, I grabbed six caches. That leaves me with 15 more caches to find until I hit 300. I plan to hit 300 here and will be planning a fun cache for my 300th :)

Anyway, I’m SO sorry this post turned out so incredibly long. However, there was a lot of detail I couldn’t post on Twitter. My phone is roaming here (has been since we got into South Dakota) so I won’t post things to Twitter via phone as often as before so as not to run up the bill. I’ll get my photos uploaded soon, too (hopefully tonight) I got some really great pics of the wildlife -- particularly the baby buffalo! Look for those on flickr soon (I'll also post them right here on my blog). TTFN!

South Dakota Pics...

...are now posted to flickr. I really like how my pics of Mt Rushmore turned out. I'll have lots more pics coming as I continue through this week. I'll also have a blog post coming soon explaining all of the drama surrounding this trip. Click the image below to see the pictures in a larger format.

It's raining...it's pouring...and hailing

Good morning! It’s now daylight, pouring down rain and getting ready to hail (again) -- not. kidding. I hear from the locals that this is not normal weather here so apparently it’s just my tent camping luck. It hailed a little last night with the storm, but nothing too terrible. And the tent held up. Minimal water inside and no tears from the hail was good news for us. This weather is supposed to continue through the weekend -- and we leave Monday.

TaLeiza and I decided we’re going to grab up a cabin tonight. It’s $40/night, but it’s better than sleeping in a tent that may or may not collapse in on you. The office doesn’t open until 8 a.m., however, so we’re sitting at Flying J down the road waiting until then. We brought our clothes and valuables so they wouldn’t get wet. The tent wasn’t wet inside as of this morning at 5:30 a.m. when we left, but who knows what it looks like now? When you wake up at 5 a.m. and your tent is bending in on you, it really is an “OMG!” moment.

I have the feeling we’ll be taking the tent down in the pouring rain, but if that means we don’t have to sleep in it so be it! I’m just ready for 8 a.m. to be here already. I will really try to keep you all updated on what’s going on, but my phone is roaming and has been since we got to South Dakota so I won’t be sending tweets from my phone. It’ll have to wait until I have internet access from my laptop.

Below is some video I took during the rain storm at the wee hours of this morning. Note: The screen is black throughout the whole video, but you can hear the rain. Other than that, it’s mostly audio of me talking about the storm.

And just for the record...this is the result of how it went.