SNOW !

this is crazy! My snow pics
portland bumper cars

Pictures

I forgot to post the link to my pictures! See them here.

Day 4

States visited: South Dakota, Wyoming
Lowest gas price: $1.96 (for 85 octane? Weird gas around here)

I’m sick of driving. Today I drove through South Dakota, and went to Mt. Rushmore. It was really nice, but I kind of expected it to be bigger? Also went to the Crazy Horse monument, which was ok. It started snowing like crazy, and I got a bit lost, and ended up in Wyoming, instead of back on I-90 like I wanted. So now I’m staying in a small town in Wyoming. Tomorrow hopefully the weather will be better.

Day 3

States visited: Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota
Lowest gas price: $2.03 (for 89, which was cheaper than regular!)

After waking up to sirens (apparently Davenport isn’t the best area I’ve stayed in) I got on the road towards Des Moines, and traveled throught yet more cornfields and rolling hills. I expected Iowa to be completely flat, and it was, but there were also gently rolling hills throughout. Des Moines was a complete surprise, not what I expected at all. There is this thing called the Skywalk, which connects a lot of the downtown buildings together and over streets with pedestrian bridges. All throughout its like a mall inside. I didn’t spend all of my time in the Skywalk though, I walked from downtown to the capital building (going through the East Village on the way) and walked past the history of Iowa museum. The part of the museum I liked the most was the depiction of frontier life for the soldiers. Des Moines was a definite unexpected highlight of this trip, I would love to go back for longer sometime. From Des Monies I made a last minute decision to go north to Minnesota, not that there was anything I could see, but just to say I went through Minnesota. The trip north and throughout Minnesota was more like what I expected Iowa to be, cornfields and flat, flat land. I saw my first sunset of the trip tonight, due to weather. I ended my journey for the night in a small town just over the South Dakota border, called Brandon. Tomorrow I expect it will be my favorite part of the trip, as I have Mt. Rushmore planned and all the rest of the badlands.

Day 2

States visited: Indiana, Illinois, Iowa
Lowest gas price: $2.09

The morning started out incredibly rainy, which put me in a foul mood. Fortunately the rain cleared well before I reached Indianapolis. The drive through Indiana was, for the most part, the same old farm/trees combo that I would soon be going crazy with. At some point during the day I crossed over a time zone, and ended up in Chicago at around noon. After driving through some less than stellar neighborhoods, I was finally able to find the downtown loop section, and have decided that Chicago is an awesome city. I tried to go up the Sears tower, but with the fog it wasn’t worth it. I took tons of pictures of the city, I hope they turn out ok because I mistakenly forgot my own camera in the car, so I had to get a disposable one. I got stuck in tons of traffic on the way out of Chicago, but eventually figured out where I was going and drove through miles of farms. I didn’t sleep all that great the first night, so I’m hoping I can get more rest tonight so I’m not in a bad mood all day again tomorrow. Tomorrow should be an easy day, just Iowa and South Dakota.

Day 1

States visited: Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana
Lowest gas price: $2.07

Finally, the start of my journey! The day started with me packing up a few remaining odds and ends, and finally getting on the road around 8:45am. The first stop was to Ray’s house, as he had left his phone at my house the night before. He lives right near the turnpike, so I decided to go that direction. And I will probably never want to drive on the turnpike again! So many trucks, and something flew out of one and hit my windshield, taking a small chip with it. I got behind a dumptruck, and again, small rocks flew out the back peppering my windshield with yet more scratches. A girl in a blue volkswagon apparently decided she wanted to get to know me better, so she tried to merge into me. And all of that happened within the first 2 hours! But the rest of the day was pretty much uneventful, driving through some pretty countryside. The mountains around the western edge of PA through WV were quite nice, and a little unexpected. I didn’t realize I would be driving through mountains the first day! But I think that will be the last until after Yellowstone. Ohio seemed nice, it actually reminded me a lot of my trip to Montreal last year, right over the border on the way to the city. It was all flat and tons of farmland and trees. I thought I would be staying around Columbus tonight, but decided to go a little further and finally made it to a little town just over the Indiana border, I think its called Centerville, approx. 45 min. east of Indianapolis. No pictures today, but I didn’t really have anything planned for Ohio and Indiana anyway (and didn’t even realize I’d be going through West Virginia! If only for 20 minutes or so). Tomorrow is Chicago! I am planning on spending the night somewhere in Iowa.

Testing...

This is a test of adding pictures via Picasa. That is a picture of Mt. Rainier.