Thru the Badlands and Big Sky Land to Buffalo, WY

Today was one heck of a long day. We went from Nebraska City, back into Iowa to I-29, and drove and drove, all the way thru South Dakota and into Wyoming, to a Motel 6 in the city of Buffalo, where I am now.




Today's weather was a lot nicer. No rain at all. On the vast majority of the trip, there was almost nothing to see out of the ordinary. The land here is so plain that that very fact is what makes it extra ordinary. Lots and lots of hey bales, cows here and there, and the land seems to cycle between long stretches of incredibly flat land to large hills. The billboards out here are kinda funny though. There's some famous drug store called Wall Drug and they seriously have 100s of billboard ads over hundreds of miles. I think its famous for record setting billboard advertising.
































The one really cool thing we did see today was The Badlands in South Dakota. This place is incredible. It is also hard to describe. Look at my pictures, cause each one is worth 1000 words any way, and that's more than I want to type.




Animal Checklist on trip so far:Bunny (We think we ran over it without touching it, not sure if it was dead or alive already(
Deer
Prairie Dog !
Large Cat or Coyote type creature that I nearly hit as it darted across the road

Start of the Journey to California

Wow! What a long day. I'm in Nebraska. Nebraska City, Nebraska. I'm pretty sure Nebraska only has one city, and when they got to naming it, they weren't very creative. I'm also pretty sure almost every state I've been in today has only one city, but they had a bigger variety of naming schemes. Honestly, if you show a map in a week and ask me to find Nebraska, I doubt I'll be able to do it.

So, I started out at Matt's today, in Lexington, KY. I helped him pack and finish cleaning out his apartment there. Everything he has is either being shipped to CA by FedEx or is in his car with us. After Lexington, we drove to Louisville, dropped off my car at the airport, where I'll be flying back to, and continued on. And continued on. And continued on.... and then! Nebraska, a Best Western, beds, internet, its wonderful.

O yes! St. Louis and Louisville are different cities. and I was in both of them. I get them confused. Its the Louis I think. I got pictures of the Arch and you can see them! Its really quite a nice arch; probably the best I've ever seen.

So far the weather has been very rainy, but nothing terrifying. The vast majority of travel today was under light rainfall, with intimidating clouds all around, some lightning, but never anything real troublesome. And our worse place of traffic was where the trip started, in Lexington. Apparently a watermelon truck caught fire and closed up the interstate. Since that everything's been pretty smooth.

I've seen lots of signs for Hardees so far; for those of you who delighted in eating there when it was in Ada. I was never a big fan, but I made Matt stop at one today for nostalgia's sake.

So the trip so far: Wed, I left work, ate dinner at Kaylin's, and headed south. I arrived in Lexington, KY, at Matt's apartment after surviving really heavy rain at about 10:30. Thursday, we're on the road around 12, leave Louisville by 1:30, and are in Nebraska at 11:30 pm.

Tomorrow we set out for Buffalo, Wyoming, not New York. New York would be the wrong direction. Its going to be another massive haul. We leave early in the morning, and head for the Badlands!