So sad, but we had to exit the great state of Montana at some point.
Snowball needed a bath like woah.
That plus breakfast in Bozeman means refills all around and we’re on the road again.
We had some serious miles to cover. Neither of us had any idea where to camp in ND, but we knew we wanted to make it there. My trusty ‘find National Forest’ method wasn’t an option because, and stop me if you’ve heard this one, North Dakota is a little flat. And doesn’t have that many forests, much less national caliber ones. freecampsites.net pulled through for us though, and I directed Jess to here:
It’s not hard to imagine the conversation at this point. Jess: “WTF. Where are you taking us, Tony?!?” Tony: “Right. I have no idea. Maybe just keep going?”
And voila!!
A lake in the middle of nowhere with a nice big field. Pit toilets, and a sign that specifically says camping is allowed (phew!). Between the beauty and the turtles that kept jumping in the water and freaking the dog out, we’ll call it a win!
North Dakota, check. Time to move south. To the oh so cleverly named South Dakota.
Sturgis was bananas. They were prepping for a little motorcycle shindig or something.
So we went where we always go: mountains! We heard folks talking about some pretty hills to the southwest. I dunno if I’d go so far as ‘black’. Maybe ‘very dark green hills’? Not nearly as catchy.
We toured around Deadwood, saw some old buildings where some famous things happened a while back.
Then it was further up the road to perhaps the most prolific gold mine of all time, the Homestake Mine. Seriously awesome place for nerds of all types: it’s the deepest mine in North America, and since it closed it’s been converted into an underground lab working on some of the most challenging particle physics problems of our time.
Next up was Hill City, home to the worlds best DINOSAUR MUSEUM!!! This is fixing to be a pretty awesome day.
Humans have only unearthed about 50 significant Tyrannosaurus Rex skeletons. The Black Hills Institute in Hill City, SD has 10 of them. That means 20% of the coolest dinosaurs to ever walk on earth are crammed into that tiny building. SO COOL!!!!! Four out of five kids leave that place saying, “Mommy, I wanna be a geologist when I grow up!” I did, and I’m already both of those. (… ok, fine, one of those. Leave it to the reader to decide which.)
After that, a bunch of dead white guys carved into the side of a cliff seemed less impressive.
You might say we took it at ‘face value’? Ok, ok. But it was still worthy of a visit in it’s own right. And then we got to pose in front of all our favorite state monuments:
My uncle and aunt live in Rapid City, so we got a couple days’ breather after a few weeks on the road. It was very nice to spend time with them and enjoy the town.
Rapid City has some hills, and they’re kinda like the hogbacks between Denver and Golden, so it felt a little like home. The home base also afforded us the opportunity to visit one of Jess’ favorite places on the planet: the Badlands.
Jess went to the Badlands on one of her summer geology adventures in high school, and she fell in love. It truly galvanized her career choice in the direction of Geology. I think it’s safe to say that without the Badlands we wouldn’t have met, so we’re ecstatic to visit such a majestic place which also holds significance to us.
We spent one more night in Rapid City, had some fantastic steak and reluctantly left the next morning. And not only reluctant to leave family: it’s a loooooooooong drive from the west end of SD to the east side of MN.
12 Hours later, we arrived at Great River Bluffs State Park right along the Mississippi. It was a late arrival, but a nice secluded campground. When we woke up, blackberries for breakfast!
We crossed the river and enjoyed a lazy morning walk in Lacrosse, Wisconsin. Very cute town! We met Jess’ uncle and followed him to the family home-on-the-range near Bonfield, Illinois. We more or less spent a week relaxing with family, and it was much needed.
We went to one of the coolest gorges we’ve ever seen at the Vermillion River, in Matthiessen State Park.
And now for another episode of “Tony and Jess’ Dam Tour, Featuring: Jess and Tony”!!! At the end of one of the fingers of the gorge was a quirky old concrete arch dam, maybe constructed in the 1920’s? They had poured the concrete in ~1 foot lifts so it looked like the surrounding sandstone. Dam cool!
This was our first long-ish stay with Jess’ side of the family and it was nice to catch up. We are so thankful to have the opportunity; it was paradise. We also spent a fun day up in Chicago, where we went on a architectural river tour: a must-see if you’re ever visiting. Seriously fun to learn all about the history of the town and the different building styles.
The theme of our trip seems to be: “we wish we could have had more time there”, and this stop was no exception. But the road called again.
From Bonfield we made our way to Madison, WI to meet up with one of our Colorado friends completing her vet internship at the university. Madison is such a wonderful college town! We had a nice dinner and were back on the road pretty early the next day.
Next up: Great Lakes!!
"Purposefully Unrushed" 
I enjoy your “trusty ‘find National Forest’ idea and will use it often…THX. Enjoy the mid-west and Great Lakes. Good blueberry pies in that neck of the woods.
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