I’m not usually one to rave about shopping places. In fact, I’ve been known to go to great lengths to avoid them at all costs. But I had been seeing amusing billboards for Wall Drug for, quite literally, over 300 miles as I drove across South Dakota, and I needed fuel and coffee anyway, so decided to see what it was all about. It turned out to be not so much a single shop as a complex maze of shops,…
Maybe it’s just something about the name, but I’ve always wanted to see the Badlands of South Dakota, although without knowing all that much about them. It’s listed as a National Park, but I’ll say here that I never saw a gate, a ranger, or a visitor’s center. But it’s a big place, so it’s entirely possible that I just missed them. Actually, it’s a huge place, and although I traveled the main drive for a while, I spent most of…
It’s been a couple of days since I’ve posted anything, mainly because I’ve had very marginal phone coverage, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been busy! I left Sioux Falls and drove almost straight west across the Great Plains of South Dakota. As I think I’ve established, I love mountains, but I’ve surprised myself by also kind of falling in love with these rolling grasslands! This is the area that’s always called the breadbasket of the country, and I…
After spending so many days wandering through Michigan, I was kind of looking forward to leaving it behind. Not because it wasn’t beautiful, it was wild and wonderful actually, but I still feel perhaps a bit too driven and want to keep moving. I also wanted to get my oil and filter changed, and Duluth, Minnesota seemed like the next big town where it would be convenient to do that. It still took hours of driving to escape Michigan, and…
I stopped in the town of Houghton last night and, before the clouds opened up, it looked like quite a nice place, with a large university, and one other claim to fame. That’s pretty important in the northcountry! But since I had a nice flat place to park, and I had passed the 5,000 mile mark on my trip the day before, I thought it might be time to check on the health of my Baby Blue. Toyotas are the…