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.