Local time: 7:11 pm
I left Vermont on June 22 and headed back to Rochester for the last hurrah in Upstate New York. After spending some time with family I headed to Marcellus, and then to Ithaca on June 25 for a good friend’s quasi wedding. Instead of getting married, he and his partner had a commitment ceremony that incorporated a lot of elements from various traditions. Their reasoning was that as long as gays are not allowed to marry, they wouldn’t either. I think that’s a pretty awesome stance to take. After camping in Ithaca that night I returned to Marcellus on the 26th to pick up Arrow and leave New York. Between the time I left Vermont and when I was ready to leave Marcellus I clocked another 485 miles.
On the night of the 26th I stayed in Manassas, Virginia, again. This time I stayed only one night and didn’t do any sightseeing. I did score myself a free copy of Dan Fisk’s new album though. It’s good to be the king. On the 27th I got to Cleveland, Ohio, and stayed there for a couple nights. Marcellus to Cleveland added another 794 miles to the odometer.
I went from Cleveland to Lexington, Kentucky, to stay with my mom for a bit. I ended up staying in Kentucky until July 5. Add 343 more miles to the tally.
My plan when I left Kentucky was to go as far as Columbia, Missouri, and stay the night there. I found myself in Columbia around 3 pm and with no success finding a place to stay so I decided to just keep going and see where I ended up. I planned to keep going west until Kansas City, and then take 29 north to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where I’d turn west again to go to Montana. It turned out that a stretch of 29 was closed because of flooding so after some twists and turns through rural Missouri and Iowa I called it a day when I got to Council Bluffs, Iowa. I was exhausted from driving and the thought of sleeping in a bed was too tempting. That’s how I ended up staying the night at the Motel 6. I have never smelled meth before, but I imagine it smells like that Motel 6. I was tired enough that I just crashed and got a good night’s sleep in spite of the questionable odors.
The next day, July 6, brought me to Sundance, Wyoming. Instead of going north on 29 I decided to cut across Nebraska. I looked at the map a bit and ended up taking 275 northwest through Nebraska until I got to 83 which took me north into South Dakota. I have seen some storms in my day, and rain strong enough to nearly bring traffic to a halt, but I have never driven through a storm like the one that hit me on 83 in South Dakota. The wind and rain were unreal. It was nearly impossible to see anything, and I thought the car might get blown and/or washed off the road. I pulled into the parking lot of some sketchy little casino in the middle of nowhere and waited out the rest of the storm. After that it was smooth sailing on 90 to Sundance.
I stayed the night with friends in Sundance and then went to Devils Tower on the morning of July 7. I have wanted to see Devils Tower for a while, and I was not disappointed. The only negative part of it was that I couldn’t hike up to the base because they don’t allow dogs on the trails. We were able to get close enough, though, so I was happy with the stop. From there I drove to Billings, Montana. The whole Lexington to Billings trip was 1,760 miles.
We walked around downtown Billings a little bit and I was not very impressed. It seems like a nice enough town but I wouldn’t want to live here. I am looking forward to Missoula tomorrow. After a couple days in Missoula we will go to Bozeman for a night or so, and then it will be time to head back to Denver. There are definitely other parts of the country I would still like to see, and some I have seen that I’d love to spend more time in, but I am getting tired of all the driving. Also I have figured out a plan for how I want to move forward with working, and I’m kind of excited to get that in motion. I am of course nervous about finding a job when I get back to Denver, but I don’t want to worry about that too much now. I am going to enjoy these last handful of days and then get to the next step in the process. I don’t intend this to be the last road trip I ever take, so the other places I still want to see will just have to wait.
This was in the campground we stayed at outside of Billings.
Total miles to date: 6,955.1 (Something seems fishy about this total. I will need to go through and double-check everything at some point.)
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