Custer, South Dakota
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Today was our second longest remaining drive (or so we think at this point) on the road trip, 7-8 hours depending on traffic etc… So we woke up early after the alarms on Tim's watch sounded and we packed up quickly, eschewing breakfast and coffee in an effort to get a couple of hours driving under our belts before we stopped to eat. We retraced our steps back up the Western boundary of the Rocky Mountain National Park, back into Wyoming and then we headed East towards Laramie. This took us a couple of hours and it turned out to be another little University Town, which appeared to exist and thrive by being around the University of Wyoming. It took us a couple of wrong turns and a little bit of exploring before we found a great little cafe for breakfast. We all had a good feed, visited the bathroom and then loaded up into Odie in order to hit the road towards South Dakota once more. The only detour on today's trip was when we headed 10 miles east into Nebraska in order to take a picture of the sign announcing the state line and then we turned around once more and got back on the road, traveling north to South Dakota
. We pulled into our campground 9 hours after leaving Colorado, pitched the tent, and made home once again. This, surprisingly, was a painless drive for two reasons, one, the kids were extremely well-behaved and two, we spent the majority of the drive listening to "The Horse and His Boy", the 5th book in the Chronicles of Narnia. The only addition to tonight's campsite was the bug mesh enclosed canopy that we had acquired in Boulder, Colorado which fit over our picnic table and protected us when some light rain fell just as we were sitting down to tea. We have a wonderful spot in the trees of the Black Hills National Forest, just West of Custer, South Dakota. Tomorrow we are poised to enter touristville and explore Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse National Monument and Wind Cave National Park.
