I forget the exact amount, but I have now driven over 2600 miles since the start of this trip. I have my trip B odometer keeping tally for me.
Mt. Rushmore was better than I thought it would be, but the weather wasn’t. It was overcast and misty when I got there. It was $10 to park, but otherwise free to get in. I paid my dues and went in. Took a bunch of pics and got some video. While there I saw a Ranger talk about to begin so I joined the tour and listened in on some history. I also checked out a video of the carving of Mt. Rushmore that was good, except for the really annoying kid who would not shut up!
Anyway, after that I left and started heading toward Denver. It was a long way and I knew I couldn’t make it in one night since I wanted to stop at Rushmore first. I asked the GPS to find me a state park my AAA campbook told me about and it found it but then told me it’d take 25 hours and 1600 miles to get to. I was pretty shocked at that and got out my atlas and found the GPS was giving totally bogus directions. I told it to reroute for shortest distance instead of fastest, and it gave a much more drivable figure. The GPS has definitely attempted to mislead me several times here out west. It just doesn’t really know enough about a lot of these roads, I guess. Plus there’s a lot of road construction so things have probably changed a lot since the maps it came with were out.
Driving through Wyoming is the most middle of nowhere place I have been. There were long stretches of road I drove for miles without passing another car or even any buildings. No gas stations or anything for miles and miles. Fortunately they were 65MPH roads (not interstate though, which is 75). I had no cell signal at all for around 5 hours. I got to Glendo as the sun was getting low. I got a quick bite at the corner store and got a bundle of firewood and went into the park. It was insanely crowded! I guess I found out where everyone in Wyoming had gone. Granted it was a nice park with a nice lake, and it was Memorial Day Weekend, but it really messed with me. There was no other campground for 50 miles. Fortunately some guy saw my trouble in finding a camp spot and told me to use his spot, since he wasn’t planning on using it anyway. Weird, but I accepted his offer and had a decent night sleep. It was really windy and the wind blowing the tent and making a lot of noise woke me up frequently. The tent held fast though, just a little noisy in a strong gust.
I got to Denver early today. The weather for the most part was overcast but dry the entire drive into Denver. I found a hotel that had internet and laundry and was cheap and checked in. Talked to Brian and… he has some flight/baggage issues. It’s a long story, but basically his bags are headed to Colorado Springs and he’s getting off at Denver. Not sure how we’re gonna work that one out yet. He hasn’t arrived yet but will in less than 2 hours.
Denver is a pretty big city. I can’t say much about the view yet due to the weather. It has been thunderstorming off and on since I got to the hotel. Good thing I have a roof after 4 straight nights of camping. I’m definitely getting tired of camping now.
My laundry experience at the hotel was less than satisfactory. First a lot of people were looking to do laundry apparently. The I finally got in the line and after drying, my clothes weren’t completely dry. Gah! At least they don’t smell like camp fire anymore.
Finally I uploaded day 5 through day 8 pictures! Check them out: http://gallery.james2009roadtrip.com It has awesome pictures of Badlands National Park in Day 7!
The weather for tomorrow isn’t looking so good… rain, rain, rain. Might not be suitable for hiking and camping. We shall see…