The Three L’s Travel The West

We got up early this morning in anticipation of our drive to Rapid City, South Dakota.  We knew it would be a long one and wanted to get an early start. 

After another great breakfast, we packed the car and made our first stop of the day at Garden of the Gods, right in Colorado Springs.  This is an area that is full of unusual rock formations.  There is much to study here if you are a fan of geology.  The drive through the park takes about 30 minutes, and that’s with stopping for photo ops.  We also toured the gift shop at the Visitor’s Center as well as the Trading Post that was by far the largest gift shop we’d seen so far on this trip.

Leaving the park, we stopped to top off the gas tank and run through the car wash to get rid of the mud from the Pike’s Peak trip yesterday.  Lesson learned:  “touch less” car wash won’t do the job for this kind of mess.  But at least all the bugs from the front were removed. 

We grabbed lunch and headed north around 1PM.  Our route took us through Denver (saw the stadium where the Broncos play), and then turned northeast toward Rapid City.  Our route took us through Nebraska and saw tons of cattle feed lots.  I remembered from my time at Fulton Provision a good portion of their beef came from IBP (located in Nebraska).  There were cows everywhere! 

As we passed through southwest Nebraska, a massive thunderstorm was forming and we heard on the radio about possible flooding, 60 mph winds, and quarter sized hail.  The sky was almost black and we would see lightening strikes every few minutes; long flashes of maybe two or three seconds arcing across the sky. While I drove to stay ahead of this (worried mainly about the potential for hail damage), Lynnae proclaimed she needed to make a rest stop.  Keeping in mind there’s not much around, we drove about 40 miles before arriving in Dalton, a small town with no gas station, but two taverns and one grocery store that were open.  I opted for the grocery store and we went in, leaving Louie in the car.  This was an old store with wood floors. We were greeted by the cashier (who I assume was also the owner) and he showed Lynnae the way to the restroom.   I browsed the store and picked up some bottled water. 

While I was at the register, Louie came flying in the door, eyes round as saucers.  Apparently the lightening struck a little too close for his liking.  He also decided to make use of the restroom.   We went back to the car and the rain started to fall. 

It took us about an hour to get ahead of or around the storm.  Somewhere in this time period was my first killing of an animal on this trip.  It was a little sparrow of some sort that just didn’t get out of the way.  Hit the front bumper with a thump and was knocked into the grass along the highway.  Upon later inspection, there was just one feather in the front grill to show its demise.  I’ve considered myself lucky to go this far and not hit something. 

As we drew near Rapid City, we could see another lightening storm forming.  By the time we reached our hotel, it was dark, and that was a first.  The wind was blowing hard and the sky would light up.  We checked in, dragged our bags up the stairs and got ready for bed.   

Miles traveled:  519 miles, travel time 8.5 hours, average mpg 32

This entry was posted on Monday, July 28th, 2008 at 12:09 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.