Hump day because that’s what people call Wednesday, the middle day of the week. It’s also the middle day of our trip. So far, so good and we are having a blast. The fish reference is because today we went to the Shedd Aquarium here in Chicago.

It’s naht a toomah!

The aquarium was a zoo. No wait… Anyway it was packed. We waited on line to buy tickets, waited on line to see fish and waited on line to eat. We probably should have guessed this would happen; but we didn’t. We loved the otters; they are cute. And the rays are amazing, if a little scary looking.  And no, they don’t have a whale at this aquarium.  At lease we didn’t see one…

Today was hot. Over 100 for most of the day. When we left dinner around 8pm it was still well into the nineties.

Tomorrow we hit the road again. Chicago was fun, but it’s time to move on.

Today we went to see the Roy Lichtenstein exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Lichtenstein is that painter who used colored dots to give his art a newpaper-y feel. That’s a gross simplification of course, but it’s how a lot of people know him. In fact, he went through several periods in his artistic life including the pop-art phase we all know but also a modern phase, a landscape phase and even some sculpture.

The Art Institute is HUGE. We spent a few hours there and hardly saw half of it.

For lunch we went to Rick Bayless’ Frontera Grill. We give it mixed reviews. The Mole Trio was great, the ceviche, while fine also, was very small. In the afternoon we played Words-with-Friends, read the newspaper and grabbed salads at Whole Foods to eat while we watched “The Five Year Engagement” in the hotel.

It was good to have a day off the road. We’ll have another tomorrow; probably hitting another museum, the planetarium or the aquarium in the morning and then hanging out in the afternoon.

Chicago has the most amazing architecture and public art. We’ll post a few photos on Smugmug.

Today we drove to Chicago were we will stay three nights. We’re in a cute hotel that says of itself “European style”. We traveled for three-plus weeks in Europe last summer and only stayed in one hotel room that was smaller than the room we have here. But, on the plus-side; it’s nicely located and they wave the parking fee for hybrids!

OMG, they traded Ichiro?!? Even though his skills and numbers have declined in the last two years, he’s still one of our favorite Mariners. The only bad thing about being on the road at this moment is that we won’t get to see the game on TV and see how the Safeco Field fans treat him when he comes to bat tonight for the Yankees. We will miss you Ichiro…

Short day today, we drove here pretty quickly from Des Moines. Lots more traffic than we’ve been used to, but things moved for the most part. We had a nice dinner at a hipster place called Hub 51. They have a lot of gluten-free options.

Tomorrow we’re off to the Art Institute of Chicago to see the Roy Lichtenstein exhibit.

No photos again today…

Today we drove from the middle (southern part of the state) of South Dakota to Des Moines, IA. Since we were very close to Nebraska, we thought we’d take a quick spin across the Missouri River and check that state off our list. But first we stopped for salad and coffee at a grocery store in Iowa. We’ve been having really simple lunches along the way, mainly stuff we buy in… grocery stores. The store we found today had a food court and we ate there. At one point we asked the barista at Starbucks (in the grocery store) about the best way to cross over into Nebraska. Along with directions, she warned us about Nebraska drivers saying they were all crazy.

We’re not sure what her reference is; drivers in Iowa seem pretty crazy too. We’re definitely not in the West anymore. The roads are more crowded, the speed limits, and the speeds are about 10 miles slower and people seem to like to hog the left lane regardless of their speed.

Other grab bag items:

We’re seeing a lot of permanent construction zones. About 14 miles of I-90 in South Dakota has east and west traffic sharing what was the eastbound lanes. The westbound lanes are gone. No pavement, just road bed. And that’s eroding with weeds popping up here and there. There are no construction machines to be seen anywhere in that stretch. It looks pretty permanent. We saw something similar in Iowa.

The Missouri river is huge. We crossed it in South Dakota and it forms the border between Nebraska and Iowa. Land within 10 or 20 miles of the river is generally green whereas most everything else is brown. You can see where the nation’s food comes from. BTW, Iowa is corn, corn, corn.

It’s really HOT here. Generally it was 100 degrees plus-or-minus a degree everywhere we went today. We left a restaurant after dinner and saw a bank sign that said 103. That’s around 8pm or so.

We’ve been heading east our whole trip; today was the first time we hit an odd-numbered (north-south) Interstate. We were on I-29 for a while, but then connected with I-80 for more eastbound travel.

We’ve seen some ‘funny’ gas station names including Whoa N’ Go, Kum & Go and the Loaf N’ Jug.

Des Moines seems like a nice city with friendly people. We found some good gluten-free options at a local brewery.

No photos for the blog or Smugmug, it was all interstate travel today. Pretty much the same on tap for tomorrow.

Not these:

These!

Yes, we went to Mt Rushmore today. It was actually pretty amazing. Jackson, WY is a tourist trap. Deadwood is a tourist trap. Keystone, the little town just before Mt Rushmore, is a MAJOR tourist trap. The things that have delighted us the most so far have been natural; The Tetons, Bighorn National Forest, the transition from mountains to plains, etc. So we were not prepared to be blown away by something man-made.

When you first see Mt Rushmore, you get that holy-stuff sensation. It can’t be. It’s too big, too realistic, too, too… too crazy to believe someone would do. But they did and we’re glad we took the time to visit. The visitor center is really well done. You’re probably a quarter mile from the mountain, but it still feels in-your-face. Or is that in their faces? Either way, we really enjoyed ourselves.

Before Rushmore we spent a little time in Deadwood. We visited the Adams Museum where we saw an actor portray Seth Bullock, the Sheriff of Deadwood back in the 1870’s. It was his strong will that brought order, but not laws, to Deadwood.

We also saw a ton of Corvettes. There was a Corvette rally in-progress and the town and surrounding roads were full of Corvettes. We frequently saw them traveling in packs of three. No idea why…

After Mt Rushmore we headed east to Chamberlain, SD. Deadwood was, well, dead. We’d seen enough and decided to get a jump on the 900+ miles to Chicago. By covering a bit more than 200 miles tonight, we gave ourselves somewhat shorter rides in the next two days. It was an easy, (very) fast drive. We were surprised to see the Central Time Zone sign; so we got in an hour later than we thought we would. We’re definitely in the Mid-West now or maybe more accurately in the Great Plains. The land is much flatter now.

We saw a lot of lightening in the distance and we could hear what sounded like drops on the windshield. But it wasn’t rain. The bugs were so thick we were hitting them constantly. The car is caked in, well, dead bugs.

Today was the seventh day of this trip; we’re one-third in. We’ve covered just over 1,800 miles so far. In five days of driving that works out to just over 360 miles a day. Not bad. The car just hums along at any speed you ask.

Today we covered the rest of Wyoming, at least the northern part of the state. We saw small towns (Greybull) and really small towns (Emblem, population 10.) The geography was interesting but then got fascinating when we reached Bighorn National Forest. At first we drove through canyons etched by the Shell Creek. Then we started to climb. And climb and climb and climb. (In the car, not on foot!) We stopped at Shell Falls and had a great time walking around the falls and viewing it from observation decks.

From there we climbed to an eventual altitude of 9,033 feet. By then the geography had become rolling hills and grazing lands. You have to watch for cattle crossing the road. They do take their time.

Late in the afternoon we rolled into Deadwood. The HBO show was loosely based on the early history of this town. We knew in advance it was a tourist trap so our expectations were not too high. And yet, we were disappointed. It’s ‘Vegas Lite’ with electronic gambling in pretty much every establishment. All the stores and restaurants have casinos in front. You’ll find the restaurant at the back or upstairs or downstairs from the casino. Most of the stores are t-shirt shops. Yeah, we bought a t-shirt or two.

What made Deadwood interesting in the 1870’s was that it was an illegal town. General Custer brought news of gold findings in 1874 and a gold rush was on. The only problem was the land belonged to the Lakota Indians as a result of a treaty in 1868. So as the town developed, it could not have an official government. It was a rowdy place and alcohol, drugs and prostitution were all available in abundance. Eventually some form of order evolved in part due to a strong-minded sheriff named Seth Bullock. It was said they had order, but no laws; where you might say today we have laws but less and less order.

Anyway, today Deadwood has laws. And gambling (legal). And drinking. We saw a lot of public drunkenness, open containers, etc.

None of the structures from the 1870’s exist today. There was a massive fire in 1879. They rebuilt mainly with brick and stone. A lot of the names of places have been re-used (Gem Theater, Bullock Hotel, No 10 Saloon, etc.) Wild Bill Hickok died here in 1876. A lot of stores, bars, restaurants and hotels use his name at least in part.

We planned two days here, but may leave early to split the drive to Chicago into three days instead of two.

If your idea of a National Park is Jellystone, you need to put down the remote, forget Yogi and BooBoo and get to Wyoming.

Today we left Jackson, drove along the east side of the Tetons and into Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone was the first national park, founded in 1872. It has the “world’s largest collection of geysers”, including Old Faithful. We’re not sure they exactly collected the geysers; we think they were already there.

We did travel far enough into the park to see Old Faithful. Of course, no one else had that idea…

It’s called Old Faithful because it spouts every 91 minutes. Except when it doesn’t. Apparently it was more faithful in the past. We arrived around 1:30pm and found the visitor center around 1:50 or so. A sign told us the next eruption would happen at 2:37pm plus or minus ten minutes. And dang, it was late! When it did erupt, it was pretty cool, but some in the crowd were disappointed. We were surprised by how little sound it made.

And get this, the gift shop has absolutely no Yogi Bear items!

The Continental Divide cuts through Yellowstone. We crossed over it several times, generally at around 9,000 feet of elevation. From Boise to Yellowstone we basically followed the Snake River, going upstream.  Leaving the park to the east we dropped about 5,000 or so feet into town of Cody.

Uh, yeah, that came out wrong. On multiple levels. The expression in the 1860’s was Westward Ho! The Homestead Act opened up the west to anyone who wanted to settle there. For $12 one could settle on 160 acres of land in the Dakota Territories, Montana Territory, etc. They did have to stay for five years and improve the land (farm it, raise livestock, etc.) to keep it. The area all those Easterners headed to back then is the area we are heading to now.

Today we drove from Boise to Jackson, WY. It was a long-ish drive, but fun. You slowly climb across the eastern part of Idaho until you reach the west side of the Tetons, part of the Rocky Mountains. We climbed to about 7,000 feet before dropping down into “Jackson Hole”. You get some amazing views as you descend into the valley.

Towns we stopped in or passed through:

Idaho: Mountain Home, Twin Falls, Pocatello, Blackfoot and Idaho Falls (where they do have a falls), Swan Valley (the road out of here , ID 31, is where you really begin to climb), Victor (another valley, small town, but they have a Subway. We didn’t stop.)

Wyoming: Wilson, Jackson

The road from Victor to Jackson, WY 22, is fantastic.

Jackson itself seems like a lot of tourist towns. It’s very crowded and traffic just crawls. They have a lot of t-shirt shops, many with a moose theme. We bought a shirt in the “Mangy Moose”. They have one gluten free restaurant, The Lotus Café. We thought it was mediocre.

But we didn’t come for the food and t-shirt shops, we came for the geography. It’s just amazing, breathtaking.

Tomorrow we’ll drive through Yellowstone National Park and maybe check out Old Faithful. It’s not a long drive but we hear traffic is slow during the summer. We have plenty of time to get to our next stop, Cody WY. We imagine those 1860’s settlers had no way to imagine miles-long lines of cars tramping through the forests and valleys.

We spent a second day here in Boise.  Had a board meeting, worked out, read, got the car washed and ate pretty healthy at three of our favorite local restaurants.   No sense cooking in!  This is one of our new favorites:  Fork.

It’s really hot here, high 90’s, but they say it was 108 last week.  We’ll surely experience some heat as we cross the Mid-West.

Tomorrow we hit the road for three straight days of driving.  We’re excited!

Little doing today.  We’re in Boise, doing our usual Boise things.  Great breakfast at Bacon.  What could be better than a restaurant that specializes in bacon?  Got a bunch of work done.  We both worked out and read for a little while in Starbucks.  And played Words with Friends of course!  Farkle coming soon…