Destination: Rapid City, South Dakota

I sleep my typical one night stand “road sleep”. That's the kind where it's hard to convince your brain to quietly shut down and get some rest, and all it wants to do is revisit all the new stimuli that you have subjected it to throughout the day. I suffer from that a lot with work travel. It quiets down eventually but not before 1, so I wake up tired at 520. 

After a quick breakfast in the lobby of two cold hard boiled eggs and a lightly toasted English Muffin with grape jelly, I fuel the car and check the air in the tires. With all things equal I head out in the Montana dawn at 7 with stars just beginning to fade.

I pass through a place called Clinton, Montana which has a huge billboard advertising an annual Testicle Festival. I make a mental note to do some later research on that. Not every town has one of those.

The sun is fighting clouds to make an appearance, a battle that will go on all day.

It's a cold morning for summer, hovering around 8 degrees C.

Around 910 I cross the Continental Divide, or so says a sign the declares an altitude of 6293 feet. For some reason when I see the sign I have an unexpected reaction of goose bumps and wet eyes. I have known about the Continental Divided since I was 13. Pour some water on one side and it goes to the Pacific. Pour on the other side and it goes to the Atlantic or Gulf Of Mexico. I learned this from a Paul Gallico book called “The Boy Who Invented the Bubble Gun”. I guess it's more emotionally important to me than I thought.

This picture is about one mile on the Atlantic side, at a brake check for trucks. There was no where to pull off at the site itself.

I stop for fuel in Manhattan, Montana. It's cute but I forget to take pictures.

For the most part I like Montana and Wyoming. They both have a broad variety of terrain, which makes for constantly changing road vistas. The roads, even the flat parts are not boring. The colors of the surrounding hills and flatland’s are constantly changing in hue, shadow, and texture.

After passing through Billings I take a stretch break at a rest stop best described as Buffalo Country. Actually it's self described according to the sign. The Little Big Horn Battlefield is about 50 miles from here.

I also see some cows. Which make me think of something someone once said to me. They described cows as “steak trees”. Bad joke, but it's the best I can do today.

Several miles east of Sheridan Wyoming a massive forest fire is burning. Having been short changed on forest fire season at home, I am again amazed how massive, and how quickly these things can grow.

Several weary hours later I pull into the Motel 6 in Rapid City South Dakota. I have passed through Deadwood, yes that one, and Sturgis, original home of Harley Davidson, but I really see nothing at all from the highway.

The Motel 6 is a bit of a surprise. Recently updated, it is at least a lot cleaner than the Days Inn of last night, and the toilet seat is actually fixed to the toilet.

At the motel clerks suggestion I drive a short distance to a place called Famous Dave's BBQ. The brisket is good, the potato salad generic, but the broccoli was wonderful and firm. Perfectly steamed!

After a couple of beers with dinner, it's time to call it a very quiet night.

The thing about today is it's been really long. I drove from Missoula Montana, to Rapid City South Dakota. That's roughly 1155 kilometres, or about 11 hours of straight driving. I'm an idiot. It took me 12 hours hotel door to hotel door, with nothing but fuel stops and nature calls. I didn't stop for food. Again, let me iterate, I am an idiot.

When I first started planning this trip I forgot some really basic and personal things.

Number one, was that I am on vacation, not working. It's OK to drive to the maximum number of allowable hours in the service of a story. Well maybe not always, but it's not alright to shortchange the actual travel experience on your vacation!!!

Number two was that I like to take my time and visit, and think, and meet people. To use a well worn phrase that I still find apropos, it's about the journey. I enjoy detours, and serendipity, and the universe showing me there are bigger things than what I had planned.

Number three is that I'm tired. Really tired. Ten years ago I could have done this without batting an exhausted eyelid. I'm not that guy anymore, and I increasingly find I don't want to be. After these past few years I should know better.

All these things mean that tomorrow I'm changing my plan slightly. I had kept a few vacation days in reserve in case I found something interesting to hang around for. I'm going to drop a planned overnight visit somewhere. I haven't decided where. I might not stay an extra day like I had planned in Key West or Key Largo or St Louis. Will till come back through this area though to visit Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and Little Big Horn.

And now to bed. The brain is too overloaded to even contemplate road sleep. The only thing it wants tonight, is sleep.