I’m combining these two days because both sucked; filled with driving and disappointment. Sunday morning before leaving Seattle, I got a veryyy lucky phone call from my friend Brent. When I told him I was about to leave for Glacier National Park, he said there was a wildfire there so to check that out before I went. After looking at news articles and calling the park, it was confirmed. People were abandoning their cars before they blew up. I don’t know if some of the park was still accessible, but things sounded serious enough I didn’t want to be near there. I’m veryyy happy I didn’t drive there to find out. Thank you Corporal Osborn!! :) Glacier was one of the stops I was most looking forward to. See Google image below to see why.
These last six days have a lot of driving because it is where I had to edit the trip and squish some days together when Holl bought her condo and we learned we were moving August first. So I thought I could at least use this day to cover some ground. I entered the next location into the GPS: Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota. Only 1166 miles away. I would drive as far as I could tolerate and do the rest the following day.
I got on I-90 east. I’ll pretty much be on this all the way to Boston. I drove through Snoqualmie Pass and Spokane, Washington; Coeur d’Alene National Forest, Idaho; and into Montana. I stopped at Clark Fork, a river I kept passing over. It was a perfect pit stop for Henley to get some exercise. It was far down a steep hill from the highway so he could run free and swim. All was fun and games until I threw a stick too far, getting into the rapids. Henley swam in and the river took him. I ran down the beach trying to keep up with him, yelling encouragingly. He went past some big rocks in the middle of the river so I couldn’t see him. I was waiting at the other side to see him again. He wasn’t reappearing. Finally, I saw him on top of one of the big rocks. I coaxed him to come down and swim to me. The water was much smoother on this side but strong enough that he was moving sideways as he inched forward. When Henley was safe on the beach, no thanks to me, we got the hell out of there.
After covering almost seven hundred miles, we called it a night at a rest stop in Bozeman, Montana. I thought it was odd there was a rest stop in a decent sized city. They’re usually not near anything, just in the middle of a highway. The parking lot was packed. There were at least two people there that clearly lived in their car, and I think right there at the rest stop. This is why you don’t put a rest stop in a city. It’s only going to be filled with weirdos and poor people (me). I moved my car four times to get away from creeps and lights. It didn’t work. There was light shining directly into the back of my car and people completely surrounding me. These weren’t friendly fellow road trippers either. I couldn’t put the windows down because it was raining so it was already too warm and then I tried to completely cover myself with a sheet to hide so it got warmer. Oh and then a Montana phone number called me at five a.m. Which creep in this parking lot is calling me and how did he get my number? Worst rest stop and worst sleep ever. This morning a man (one who definitely lives in his car) asked me for money. There’s a Marriott across the street and I just slept at a rest stop next to you. Does it look like a have spare cash??
Ok next day: continued driving through Montana, a corner of Wyoming, and into South Dakota. High point of the day: came across the best store in Custer filled with skulls, skins, taxidermy, and Native American stuff. Do you take credit cards?? Great. I was in Black Hills National Forest already. I just had to find a good road to go down to set up camp. I was stoked I was there early enough in the day, thanks to all the miles covered yesterday. Every other night seemed to be rushed to just find a spot before dark, but today we were going to hike and make dinner and chill all before locking ourselves in the car again. But then the sky turned a dark slate gray, the clouds looked crazy, and the wind picked up. It came out of nowhere and it was coming fast. Henley had been stuck in the car all day. I hated the thought of being stuck in it until morning. I called all of the hotels in the area. They were all booked, I’m guessing because the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally starts next week. I kept driving and played it as the weather changed.
We had come to a complete park on the road due to an accident ahead. This ended up being lucky for us because the storm hit hard with rain and wind and hail. There was no way I could have driven through it. By the time we moved ahead, the storm had calmed. It was still raining and lightening so we went to Petco so Henley could move around and play a little and get a treat. I got back on 90 east and pulled into the first rest stop I found. The weather got way worse. It felt like I could have been in a tornado, but the weather alerts just said for thunderstorms. The lightening is still crazy though. So... just locked safely in a car at a rest stop in South Dakota with a damp dog for the night. Sometimes I wonder why I chose this life for myself. :)
<3
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| Between hits of the thunderstorms in Black Hills, South Dakota |
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| Maybe my photo wouldn't have come out quite like this but still... Glacier Ntl Park :( |
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| My evening set up :) |
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