Almost home

We left Twin Falls this morning at 8:30…not too bad for us!  We had a little over 300 miles to go to get to Green River, WY where we were going to overnight before making it the rest of the way home.  The drive was pretty uneventful and so I took the opportunity to reflect on all the adventures we’ve had together with Ava and The Beast.
Ava in the mirror196 days of adventure to be exact. Did you hear that?  One hundred and ninety six days!!!  That blows my mind!  We’ve been to forts, caves, deserts, planetariums, star parties, beaches, presidents houses, battle sites, monuments, memorials, parks, capitol buildings, mountains, rainforests, cities, skyscrapers, estuaries, islands, rivers, canyons, arches, bridges, boats, kayaks, ferries, plantations, towers, lakes, zoos, museums and probably more.  I’ll have to figure out the exact number but we’ve driven close to 20,000 miles in The Beast, the majority of which he was pulling Ava.  At about 10 miles to the gallon and high diesel prices….well, you can do the math but don’t tell me the dollar amount please.  Because, it doesn’t matter.  Those 196 days exploring this country with my family was worth more than any amount of money.
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Devil’s Tower

Devil’s Tower came very highly rated by my sister and her family and since it was on our way we decided to stop over for a day.  And boy am I glad we did.  Again, I was expecting Wyoming to be flat, brown and desolate and Devil’s Tower to be a mass of rock in the middle of the barren wasteland.  But I couldn’t have been more wrong.  It was hilly and beautiful and green.  We pulled in to Devil’s Tower View campground a little after lunch and filled our bellies before we headed off to the tower.  It was just 5-10 minutes down the road from our campground.  We got in for free with our annual park pass and went straight to the visitor’s center to get Jr Ranger booklets, get passport stamps and buy a postcards for the kids’ collections.

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Rushless, Restmore

It was a long but pleasant drive from Longmont to the Black Hills of South Dakota. I had not been looking forward to the drive through Wyoming because I had it pictured as a barren wasteland. But I was pleasantly surprised by the interesting landscape of rolling hills, peculiar rock outcroppings and the green green grass. Everything was so green!!  We stopped at a dusty Wyoming truck stop for fuel, restroom breaks and lunch before heading on through a little squall towards South Dakota.
Truck stop

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