Road-trippin'! Part IX - Dakotas!

Great faces, great places.  That about sums up Tom and me and our road-trip, but it's a motto I saw for South Dakota.

It's always interesting to see how a person will act when they are in desperate need of using the bathroom.  Tom began our trip through the Dakotas with a little law breaking: we'd been on the road a couple hours, mostly in a rainstorm, when Tom says he needs to use the restroom.  So we start looking for exits.  Now, very rarely does a person speed up when they're coming down the offramp to exit the freeway, but Tom sure did.  He ran the red light squealing his tires around the corner at freeway speeds, does and illegal U-turn, and pulls up to this restaurant.  I think he was in and out before I registered just how awesome that all panned out.

Lunch at Hardee's

Anyway, to pass the time on the long, flat, seemingly deserted roadway, we decided to get out the pull-and-peel Twizzlers, and, because boys will be boys, started fighting with them.  They surprisingly sting quite a bit.  Who knew? :)

That didn't last long, but it did get us all the way to lunch.  We ate at the Rusty Spur to continue our tradition of eating the local cuisine.  I ordered a nice, juicy steak, and, just to see if I could down it, also ordered a large order of chicken fingers.  Yet again, I ask the waiter how often someone orders like I do, to which he simply replied, "Doesn't happen."  We took in some billiards and had a nice chat with a biker, who told me I should make it out to Sturgis for the ride, and that I should get a tattoo.  Nice guy, but I think he was offering to ink me up :/

So... on to the Badlands.  K, this place was cool - I couldn't believe how amazing it was!  Badlands just wasn't the name for it this year; the grass was green, the flowers were in bloom, it wasn't stiflingly hot... And it was remarkably beautiful!

We wanted to make Mt. Rushmore before sunset, so we hauled out of there, and made it just... a bit late :/  But we made it for the flag presentation there at night.

Had to come back in the morning and were able to take the scenic route through the Black Hills, due to a scheduling conflict at Wind Cave National Monument.

We saw Vettes all throughout the area, it was cool.

Crazy Horse

Throughout the Black Hills there were tunnels you could see Rushmore through.

And the main reason we couldn't stay long was we had to make it on time to the morning showing of Harry Potter! :)  Yes, I am that nerdy, but I had to see it opening day.  I admit, I was pretty excited, just ask Tom.

Sure, the movie saga may have ended, but Pottermania will never end, and we proved it as we drove off into the sunset listening to LeakyCon radio, official XM Radio station of all things Harry Potter. Station 142 I believe :)

Road-trippin'! Part VIII - Chicago!

I don't like Illinois, I just don't.  Even Indiana was alright.  Visiting Notre Dame and seeing beautiful farmhouses along the highway were welcoming, but Illinois had no such feel.

Driving through 24 states and even up into Canada, with each new state or province came a "Welcome" sign.  Well, every one except Illinois - I guess they don't like travelers.  I had been planking at each new state sign, so we definitely were looking for an Illinois sign, but none came, not going in, not even when we left (I scoured the landscape behind as we were leaving the state).  Due to the fact that we didn't feel welcome, we didn't stay long.

The streets of Gotham

One thing we had to get when we were in Chicago was an original deep-dish, Chicago-style pizza.  So we went to Gino's!  That place was cool: they let you 'decorate', aka graffiti, all over the benches and walls and such.  I left my mark in a different way :)  Tom ordered a deep-dish big enough for the both of us so I decided to get some chicken Alfredo over fettuccine.  Well, the pasta came and it was the size of 3 servings from The Olive Garden.  I downed it after a while, then went for some pizza.  Needless to say, I wasn't feeling too well, having eaten so much, so I asked the waitress (who had worked there for over 3 years), "How many people are stupid enough to eat a full order of pasta then go for pizza?" She thought about it for a moment, then replied, "One."  So I was either stupid or brave, but I was the first one she knew of to do it!

We had to hit up Wrigley Field, home of the Cubbies.  It was a pretty cool tour; I liked the history of the park and how the tour guide tried to make it sound as if the Cubs were good..  He admitted that they've had a 'few' bad seasons recently (yeah like the last 90 years).  My favorite part of the tour was when he was taking us to the most famous part of Wrigley: the visitor's locker room.  I found that hilarious!  Apparently every one comes to Wrigley to go to the visitor's lockers...

Sitting where many of the greats have 

The ivy

The locker room no one cares about

We were only a few blocks away from Lake Michigan so I ran over and watched the surf for a while.

Then we got out of Gotham as quickly as possible.  So long Illinois!

Road-trippin'! Part VII - Church sites (a few, anyway)!

Eastern New York and western New York are so different!  Eastern is filled with the big cities, the craziness of the New-York minute, the hustle and bustle of the fast life, and the western part is full of huge fields, small towns, and is just peaceful.

It was great to get the small town feel as we came up to Palmyra.  We first stopped at the Hill Cumorah Visitor's Center, where I was told I had to give the missionaries a referral, so I dutifully did so.  We watched the wonderful short film of the Restoration, and as I was sitting pondering in front of the Christus, I was cornered by a lady that was informed I was a teacher.  She rattled off a few places I "absolutely had to visit" so I could be authorized to teach U.S. History.  Well, we didn't visit any of them, and I blame Tom, since he was the driver. :)  Anyway, walking around the Hill Cumorah was exhilarating, especially looking down from the top at the thousands of chairs set up for the Hill Cumorah pageant.  Sadly, we were there on their day off, so we didn't stay around long.

We made sure to visit the Palmyra temple grounds and feel of the spirit there.  The whole area just demands a sort of quiet dignity, it's an amazing feeling.  And that was even before we went to the Sacred Grove and the Joseph Smith homestead.

If I thought it was cool BEFORE we visited the Sacred Grove, I was severely underestimating the word, 'cool'.  Wow, it was a transcendent moment in time, so tranquil and full of love that place is.  Take away the mosquitos and I could walk around the grove for days, just pondering on the things of eternity.

As with practically all spiritual experiences, it made me crave ice cream, so we went into town to the local ice cream parlor.  I looked at the prices and said, "I'll take a large."  "That's 8 scoops," replied the server.  "Nevermind!" It took over 30 minutes to pound through my 'medium', which was 6 heaping scoops of awesomeness.

The ice cream held me over almost to Kirtland, where we took a nice tour of the Kirtland temple.  It was a beautiful day, so that made up for the tour guide's 'umms' and 'likes'.  Yikes, it was bad - I couldn't even pay attention to the girl giving the tour, so I snuck in some pictures :)

I'm glad we got in some good spiritual experiences on our trip, cause heaven knows we needed it :)