Final Post

We didn’t see Mt. Rushmore in the evening like we were hoping, but thought we surely would the next morning. The biggest issue on our minds was that it would delay our start out that morning on what was already to be a long driving day. Then when I got back to the hotel from the grocery store and heard everyone all worried about the winter weather advisory and incoming snow storm, our goals kind of changed. It was too late to take right off , and it had been a long enough day already. We didn’t want to be crossing the Rockies in the middle of the night with snow coming in. So we just went to bed and hoped the weatherman had judged wrong.
I didn’t sleep good that night. I kept getting up and looking out the window. No snow. That’s great! I finally got a good few hours of sleep and when we woke up at 5:30AM, there was wet thick rain and no snow. A half hour later there was definite snow- that’s the picture I took out the hotel window. We watched the weather forecast and decided we had better get out of Dodge. Where we were going looked better than where we were. They were calling for a number of inches. Another half hour later when we got out to the car there was over an inch on our car and it was coming down like crazy. It was thick and went and very dense snow. We counted on I-90 being in good shape.
We didn’t even take a chance on Mt. Rushmore, Sturgis, Deadwood or any other place. We just cruised. I-90 was in decent shape. They were plowing like crazy and we followed behind a plow truck for many of the miles we drove. It never got more than what looked like about 3 inches so it went pretty smooth. The driving was pretty slow going but very doable. The driving snow was the issue even more than the accumulations, especially since they were aggressively plowing.

We drove through Sheridan, Wyoming and when we got to Montana the weather finally broke. So, it turns out that all we have ever seen of Wyoming is snow- both times through , on both sides of the state. We were really hoping to go to Yellowstone but the roads were either closed or the ones that had just opened up for the season a week earlier were now covered with snow and we decided not to attempt it. It was kind of a disappointing tourist day since we had hoped to do a lot of the neat things on this stretch. Turns out that Rapid City did get a good dumping so I guess we got out in good time.

When we got Montana we did stop at Custer’s Last Stand and saw the Battle of Little Big Horn National Monument. That was pretty cool. Some of you might remember my stories of my trips across the country with my folks when I was 10, 13 & 15 and how I slept most of the way and wouldn’t get out of the car at Custer’s last stand. So this time, despite the crappy weather, I did. So, I guess I have matured some. ( I did whine a bit about the cold icy wind, however)
We spent the night in Bozeman, Montana and headed out today for home. We stopped by Coeur D’Alene, Idaho for a lunch break and really loved seeing the place where we spent our honeymoon. We were very tempted to stay the night there tonight, but home was calling us. Emily graduates this weekend and we have to do practical things before then, like empty out the car and get it washed and get clothes ready to wear and all. But it was bitter sweet to leave the hotel. The weather was fabulous in Coeur D’alene and it was so beautiful and peaceful. Ron says we’ll come back, but I know if we haven’t been back in the last 27 years we aren’t likely to. I have to admit I was pretty sad, since we have never gone back to any of the places we went on our honeymoon and we have talked about it so many times. Like all the other times, “Life” got in the way this time too.
We just powered home and finally made it. We saw 19 states, put on over 8000 miles. Used up all of our Marriott points on hotels along the way, and never did use that extra night at the hotel chain Ron sent me in to get. We were just ahead of two bad snow storms, avoided some pretty serious flooding in Nashville, and lots of serious tornados in the Oklahoma area (Ron says God must be a Sonics Fan) , saw the gulf coast before any oil hits it, & we had no serious troubles along the way. Not too bad!

Meaning of life? No I guess we never did find it. I guess if I had to come up with some profound things, I would say that the trip confirmed some things, like hard work pays off, since it looks like Mom’s place will sell for more than we figured. I think I would say that its important to love the person you marry since you never know what circumstances will occur where you are in a car together for 12 hours a day for a month. Mostly that its important to enjoy the journey, not just wait for the destination, since lots of the things we had originally thought we might get to do on the trip( like visit baseball stadiums, eat great regional food, do lots of historical sites, etc) never happened, but it turned out to be a really great trip anyway, since we just tried to have fun doing what we could with what time we could carve out along the way.

Sioux Falls to Rapid City. So Dakota

So this post is being written in real time now, so I am all caught up with the past posts. Today we drove from Soiux Falls to Rapid City to spend the night in the foothills by Mt. Rushmore. The weather was pretty wet and windy all day getting here.

We took a great detour through Bad Lands National Park. Wow, what a beautiful drive. Absolutely amazing. I have never seen anything so awe inspiring. The park route is 35 miles right through the badlands. Take a look at the photos but know that no photos could really capture the full picture. The geology was amazing and the wildlife too.

We also passed a few other places that required photos. You all have probably heard of Wall Drug. Well, they parted us from some of our money. We just had to have the photo opportunity at Wall Drug. We had a little bite to eat and just laughed at all of the kitsch, and how smart those wall drug people were.

We also stopped at an old 1880 town recreation, but would not pay the fee to see the old buildings, so sorry no photo op. We passed De Smet (the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder of Little House fame) and for Christene, we just had to take that Exit. You will see a photo of a little house in the side of the hill that was prairie-home standard. We saw the Corn Palace, Hoever. A huge middle eastern inspired building entirely covered with Corn products. ( Husk, seeds, kernals, etc) and made into murals on the whole outside and inside. Oh, and they change them every year. Truly one of the great enigmas. We crossed the Missouri River too. Cool!

The hotel for the night is here in Rapid City, So Dakota. We drove up to see Mt. Rushmore tonight but there was snow blowing and too much fog to see it, so back to the hotel we went. The plan was to go first thing in the morning before we head out of town- headed for Sturgis, but when we got back to the room everyone was all in a flutter due to the Winter storm Advisory for the area tonight. 4-6 inches of snow expected. HOLY CRAP!!!! Ron and I started considering if we would just charge out tonight ahead of the storm, but thought it might be better to be stuck here than to be stuck in a worse place in the middle of the night. We are counting on I-90 being drivable.

Iowa to Sioux Falls, South Dakota

We left Iowa, back in one car- Thank Goodness! It took us through Minnesota and past The Jolly Green Giant. The Jolly Green Giant was 60 feet tall. Not too much to say about this drive. We both took turns napping.

The highlight of the trip to me was that I bought a purse at a truck stop. Yes, another weird moment for me to be sure, but I walked into this truck stop to get a post card and there on the shelf, covered in dust was a great purse. I think it was a Brighton, or as close to it as I could get without the Brighton name. Black and brown and all cownboy with silver on it, etc. I took it up to the counter and the guy said my bill was 67 cents- the cost of the postcards. I told him I also wanted the purse. He said, "We sell those?". I showed him the price tag which was already good since it had been marked down, and he gave it to me for half that. I think I did good, sine Ron's grocery bad of Ice and some snack food cost more. But it has since been referred to as "My truck Stop Purse", so maybe it wasn't such a good buy after all.

Indianapolis to Cedar Rapids Iowa

Today we headed to Ron’s town- Cedar Rapids Iowa. We are pretty anxious to see him. I am especially excited since it will be Mother’s Day when we see him. A real true gift to me. We took a long way around route so we could go into Chicago again, one of our favorite cities. We went to check out Emily’s grad school and Trevor’s too. We took a few pictures of Emily's school.

We went into the city and had lunch. It was really nice. We shopped on Michigan Avenue. ( The real Donna’s back!!!) I didn’t need anything- after all I had my new sundress --- but it was fun to walk around and look at stuff. We got into Cedar Rapids, and Ron had booked us for two nights at the nicest hotel in town. It was a super treat- two nights in one place was a luxury and it was a very swanky hotel. This was a great Mother’s Day gift.

We saw Ron for Breakfast and he looked great. He took us to a little diner in town that Ron said would be just the place that Hilary Clinton would have shown up in during the campaign in Iowa. Quaint. I waited on “Flo” to serve us in her pink uniform, but it wasn’t quite that iconic. Breakfast was good. This was the first real breakfast we had on the trip, opting for the grab and go breakfasts served at the hotels most mornings , or a Starbucks if there was one in town. I went to the local nail joint and had my nails done in the middle of the day, which was a nice treat and badly needed after all of the home repair and chemical damage from Florida. We went to Ron and Krista’s apartment and all went to dinner that night at a little place out of town that Ron thought of.

The dinner was at a place called the Amana colonies. Back in the 1800’s some religious separatists of German origin came to the Iowa area to set up colonies of communal living. They resemble Amish lifestyles but are very clear to tell you that they do not share religious beliefs of the Amish. There are 7 villages in the Amana Colonies. It is a beautiful little township. All clapboard siding and very authentic German town. It isn’t like Leavenworth at all. Leavenwoth is made to resemble an alpine town and is very kitsch. This is all pioneer-like and more authentic German. They sell hand crafted items and pridedd themselves on the simple lifestyle they can keep. There are lots of modern elements too, but it is really bucolic and just peaceful to look at. The restaurant was called the Rottenberg house and we got the Mother’s Day Special German dinner, served family style. We have probable had better food and better service other places but the meal was made special by sharing it with Ron and Krista and the atmosphere felt really “German Family”. I loved seeing Ron. He’s doing well. He looks great. His apartment was old but they fixed it up as cute as they could have. They are doing good work for the community. Ron took us around and showed us the flood damage the city sustained. It was a mini- New Orleans. You could see whole neighborhoods, that were abandoned after the flooding. Ghost towns. Places were the water mark was as high as the rooftops. The main old gracious city buildings by the river that had whole bottom floors under water and the large grand city bridge- large concrete structure that was completely submerged . It is hard to even imagine.
We slept in pretty late the next morning and enjoyed our fabulous room and hotel until check-out time. I am looking forward to being in one car again. We now have this car completely filled with all of the stuff from Grams. Ron says all we need is the rocking chair tied up on top. I guess you can take the couple out of the south, but you can’t take the south out of the couple. Today we drive to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The weather is going to be bad. Tornados a little further south have poured in lightening, rain and hail to our planned route. I’m glad to be able to share the driving with Ron. It’s been a great trip for us, kind of like a second honeymoon. Those of you who thought we wouldn’t be able to stand each other this long underestimated Ron’s patience, I guess.

Savannah, Georgia

We got to Savannah , Georgia and had a wonderful day. We spent the morning walking around Historic Savannah. It was pretty hot but what a wonderful city. Lots of fabulous treed squares, with fantastic buildings and monuments. Full of young active people. The architecture was beautiful, and the city seemed to be laid out with vistas of the monuments and most spectacular buildings in mind. It was probably the chance to get some really great food, since there were great restaurants all around the city but we just had to go eat at Paula Deen’s restaurant, “Lady and Sons”. It was pretty commercial but still, it called to us. Nothing like the call of fried butter.

We had the lunch buffet… of course, it a buffet…how could you serve southern food to southern folks and not have it be by buffet, right? Fried Chicken, Fried Pork Chop, Pork Roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, creamed corn, fried biscuits and corn bread, black eyed peas, collard greens, green beans with smoked sausage and yes…butter sauce. Complimented with Sweet Tea and finished off with Gooey Butter Cake , Banana or Bread Pudding. We ate a bite or two of everything and even that was just too much. We both waddled off thank ful we had chosen the walking tour of the city and not the trolley or horse drawn carriage tour. We waited in line to get our picture taken under the sign along with all of the other obese fans of Paula Deen. Man, we have to get out of this place! Dad did find the office of Phillipe Marlow-Detective. Of course we had to take a picture.

The Trip from Georgia took us through Tennessee and Kentucky, along the Appalachia Mountain Foothills.. This was one of the most beautiful parts of the drive so far. Fabulous rolling hillsides and canyons and river views. Just awesome! I didn’t get pictures because we were still in two cars. We started having some car troubles with the van earlier and it was still an issue today. We couldn’t stop the van or it had to be jumpstarted to get it going again. We made plans to have the battery replaced by AAA when we made it to our hotel that night, so we just pushed through to get to Indianapolis, where we were spending the night.
We chose that route so as to avoid Nashville that was experiencing some pretty devasting flooding. The highways were open but since we were having some car issues we figured that the services there would be already overwhelmed if they existed at all, so we went the other way. It meant a long day – 12 hours of driving. We were glad to get to our hotel in Indianapolis and even more glad that AAA came in ten minutes. The new battery solved the problem. So much for spending 1000.00 at the dealership in Florida to get the van in road worth shape. Have I said how glad I am to get out of Florida?
Indianapolis was nice- we got in too late to catch a show at the Slippery Noodle- another thing Ron would have liked to have done.

Ocala Florida to Savannah, Georgia

Hello Again Family and Friends,
We left Florida and it was a good feeling. Ron and I were in separate cars so it made spontaneous stops a little harder so mostly we just pushed on north. I don’t have too many pictures of this part of the trip so I’ll tell you where we did not stop. We did not stop at “Krystal’s- Where you can get your Grub on.”. We did not stop at any roadside Okra stands. We did not stop at the “We Bare All Diner- Breakfast, Lunch and So Much More”.
Its probably a good thing. I was getting a little too familiar with the deep south. One of the days we were in Florida, we took the cars into the car wash to clean and vacuum, and clean the carpets in the van, and it was over 100 degrees with 100% humidity. Man was it hot. We were covered in sweat when we headed home. I stopped at the Walgreens drug store on the way home for something and saw a rack of sun dresses. All 100% cotton and in large women sizes- naturally –it was Walgreens’ after all. I bought one that looked like it should have been on a patio umbrella- brown and gold and sage green and big ‘ole orange flowers. It was one of the ugliest things I have ever seen but God did it feel good to get out of the shower and throw it on- commando style. I was comfortable for the first time down there in that God forsaken state. I thought I had better get out of there quick. You know that I’ve been “drinking the Kool-aid” when I start shopping at Walgreens’ for clothes . I plan to exercise my Nordstrom’s special shopper privileges as soon as I get home. 
OH, I forgot to tell you about the appliance salesman where we went to buy the dishwasher. He looked like he was from an episode of “Earl”. He was extolling the virtues of the dishwasher’s large lower rack. He said it was large enough for cookie sheets- or as he called them… “French Fry sheets.” Yes, that’s Florida… Where your dishwasher is large enough for those ever plaguing French Fry sheets. We didn’t buy it there, we moved on to the next appliance store. And just rolled out eyes.
We were also impressed with the sign we saw that indicated that we were part of setting a new Florida record. The sign on one of the streets by Florida State University said…
Cars Yielding to Pedestrians:
Current Record: 66%
To Date Record: 66%
Yes, we also wondered about those poor 44% who were casualties of the non- yielding cars. I guess that might contribute to the low graduation rate at Florida State U. H-m-m-m?.

Our hotel that night was in a special location..It was associated with the Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing. Right next door, in fact. Who knew that was such a draw? The decorations in the hotel were all in tribute to drag racing and full of the most dedicated fans. We were unable to make small talk at breakfast the next morning. ‘Nuff Said.
This pretty much sums up the trip from Florida and into Georgia. The picture of the backside of Ron’s car was pretty much the view.

Working in Florida and heading out again

Hi Family,
Well, we worked like dogs at Grams house and got it looking pretty good. We picked up Elle at the airport Saturday night and we had spent most of the day on Saturday trying to get as much of the random shopping and furniture building done so we could see right away what we would need to run out and get, and we would be able to really concentrate on the fix once Elle go there.

You kids know what it looked like before and how much there was to do, so you will be amazed at what we did in those few short days. I'll post a couple pictures, but I'll show you all of them when we get home. We made our own version of HGTV. But my God, it was hard work. We worked from 5:30 in the morning until midnight for 5 days. The main projects we got done were to strip the old dated wallpaper, repair the kitchen area walls, paint living room, and dining room and litchen walls, buy and install new dishwasher and garbage disposal, bleach and scrup all of the tile and grout, recovered the window valances, recovered the patio furniture, moved furniture around the house, cleaned out cabinets, scrubbed out the fridge, freezer, ice maker, cut down overgrown shrubbery, laid out a crap load of landscape decorator rock, cleaned out closet and donated carloads of stuff to Goodwill. We built IKea furniture and decorated our little hearts out. We took the van in to be fixed for the cross country drive.

The bad news is that Dad fell off the ladder and sprained his ankle pretty bad and I banged up my knee and had some pretty bad chemicl burn on my hands from all of the cleaners and bleach. All of our backs were pretty aching and we were physiclly exhausted.

The good news is that we learned alot about the vacation rental market there so if it doesn't sell, we have some good options, and Ron and I met with a local realtor who brought us some comps and told us we should be able to sell for 50,000.00 more than the realor we met a few months ago before cleaning up Mom's place. I think thats pretty promising. Elle and I will have to look over all of the numbers when we get back home. I think we can list it anytime now, and if we vacation rental it, there might be one more quick weekend down there to get it rental ready. But overall, the worst is behind us. Pray for a quick sell.

We headed back on the road and spent the first night in Ocala Florida. We didn't get out of the house until 5:00 or so, so it was time to stop when we got to middle Florida. I know it might have been smart to stay one more night and leave early the next morning, but Ron & I just really wanted to get out of there. Elle flew out Wednesday afternoon too, so it seemed like the time to go.

We each drove one car, Dad and I traded off on who would drive the smelly van. Lots of windows open. Lots of febreeze. I hope it makes it back to Ron in Iowa.