And we're finally off. I'm driving back home after an
extended stay in the Chicago area. When I drove here in mid-August I did it in 38 hours - driving back I'm planning on taking six or seven nights. I'm dragging a U-haul trailer (I had a hitch put on my Forester for my Birthday) and and enough supplies for five 40 liter treatments.
I'm writing this as we drive towards Madison, WI on I-94. I'm not sure where we'll stop tonight - tomorrow we'll hit the Badlands and sleep near Mt Rushmore. We have reservations at the
Shoshone Lodge Saturday and Sunday night. I'm driving with my friend Steve who I've know since I was 7 years old. He lives in FL; flew up to make the drive with me, he and his wife and daughter were on the second half of the
boat charter I did in May. Cairny my dog is in the car too of course.
We're driving into a deep orange sunset about 30 miles from Madison right now - I hope that is a good omen for the trip.
Day 2We just kept driving instead of stopping last night. About 3 in the morning outside of Mitchel at a ranch access road I pulled off into the darkness to look at the stars. What a sight. I have a double size sun roof which I opened to the night sky. The Milky Way was in full glory. I left the car running and the seat heat on because it was down into the 40s outside. I spent about 20 minutes there looking for shooting stars before pushing on to Rapid City - I was thinking we'd get to the bad lands in time for the sunrise.
I was tracking my gas wondering what the impact of the trailer would be on the 25 MPG that I got on the way here - going through Wisconsin Steve tucked in behind semi trailers getting about 23 MPG (myth busters said trailing trailers improves MPG 10% or more. Going through Minnesota the trucks were few and far between and my mileage dropped to 20 MPG. With a 14 gallon tank I figured I would get gas at 250 mile increments.
After watching stars I was reaching the 250 mile mark with a gas exit in view - when the car died about 3/4 miles from the station - I had run out of gas. 3:30AM. Middle of S Dakota. Dark. No gas. Steve had been sleeping now we were all walking - the two of us and the dog along I-90 in the dark. It was cold. It took us about 45 minutes to walk there and back and then drive back to fill up - I now have a 2.5 gallon gas can in the trailer. The tank took only 12.5 gallons. hmmm maybe the trailer is effecting the tank's efficiency? - pushing down on the back of the car. I don't know. Would have made it if I had shut down the engine while star gazing.
We pushed on, I was driving. About 5 I thought I saw a truck without its lights on that wasn't there (Steve convinced me that I hadn't seen the Flying Dutchman Semi)- we pulled on to an exit ramp and both slept to dawn.
With the dawn and few minutes of rest we drove the hundred miles left to the Badlands. The only other time I had taken the scenic route through here was with my Dad when I made my first trip out to Washington to go to school. It was a beautiful day today. We pulled over at a majority of the scenic overlooks and had breakfast at the Park lodge. There were a lot of bison and two large Prairie Dog Towns. We ended up on 25 miles of gravel road - some wash boarding before finding pavement and coming into Rapid city - avoiding I-90. It was a great day.
Day 3Steve is still sawing wood - I've put away last night's treatment which was uneventful - 40L; 8.5 hours - now I am feeling rested and dialyzed. We drove up to Mt Rushmore and the Crazy House monuments (I posted one of the Rushmore pics the Crazy Horse pics are too blurry to be recognizable) last night. Seeing them lit up at night is impressive. Driving there in the dark, moonless night along the hilly and winding roads was made easier by dropping the trailer at the motel. Without the trailer my Forester felt like a Porsche - probably also due to the fact that I have never driven a Porsche. The downside of seeing the monuments at night was that I know we were driving through beautiful country but we should see some of that in a few hours.
The plan is to load up and then drive through a bit of the Black Hills before rejoining I-90 and heading to Devils Tower. From there we'll leave 1-90 in Gillette, WY and head over to the Shoshone Lodge for two nights. I'm looking forward to it.
On Saturday we left Rapid City about 9AM, heading West on I-90. Just past Sturgis we turned off and headed south to Lead before cutting over and then up Spearfish Canyon. A beautiful day in the 70s with the trees at the height of their fall colors it was as pretty a drive as one could imagine. Amazing. I tried something that I'm sure to do again.
Steve held my old Olympus camera out the moon roof and shot about 75 seconds of video. I uploaded the video to Google
here(
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5878675879994761509). Turn down the volume because all there is is the wind noise.
At the end of the canyon we rejoined I-90 and headed into Wyoming about seven miles before exiting for Aladdin following a series of roads to the north, into the shadow of Devil's Tower. We didn't stop for more than a picture since by now it was the early afternoon; we had a long drive still to go to our Cabin at the Shoshone Lodge.
When we rejoined I-90 at Moorcroft Steve was driving and I dozed off. After running out of gas the previous day we agreed that we'd fill-up before we reached a quarter tank, this would mean a gas stop in Gillette. When Steve woke me to tell me the fuel light had come on we were around mile marker 90 over 30 miles back.
"The fuel light was the last thing I ever saw" I said waking up.
We needed gas. I've known Steve since I was 7 - we've never been able to learn from each others experiences. If he touched something before jumping back exclaiming how hot it was I would still touch it to see for myself. If we ran out of gas there really wasn't much I could say. As we came up to Exit 88 it indicated gas (with next services 32 miles). We drove up a dirt road to 88 Fuels where it was explained there was no gas - hadn't been for over a year.
All was not loss - at the rest area, back near the road, lived a man named Joe - talk to him the man at the store without gas said. Joe was the rest area attendant, living in a RV adjacent to the official Wyoming highway rest stop. He had 5 gallons of gas to spare which got us on our way.
The rest of the drive was uneventful, but long. We had to cross a pass that was at 9,600 feet which with the trailer in tow we could only climb at about 40MPG. In the end we picked up supplies in Cody and got up to the Shoshone Lodge at about 9:30, getting to bed by 11. No dialysis.
Day 4We slept in until 11AM - twelve hours of sleep. After getting some food up the road I went on a hike while Steve to a horse back ride for about an hour. I wasn't sure how my dog would react to me being on a horse and I didn't have the heart to leave in the car. It was a nice hike and Steve had a good ride. I have all my equipment for tonight's dialysis treatment unloaded from the car.
We have a nice two bedroom cabin - each bedroom has it's own heat so I'll be able to make my room nice and warm for tonight's run. Tomorrow we'll head into Yellowstone and spend the night in West Yellowstone or maybe push on into Montana.
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