We weren’t super excited to see Mount Rushmore, thinking it was a “manufactured” National Park.  We were wrong. Mount Rushmore was crazy cool and impressive.  The sculptor who pulled off the feat of putting presidential faces in granite deserves an award for tourism creation ingenuity.  North Dakota what are you waiting for!?

Time for another state – Wyoming!  After driving for over a thousand miles in a week, D decided to put our life insurance policy to the test and let J drive for a bit. The drive would take us from Mount Rushmore to Douglas in Wyoming. Apparently, the gods were not pleased with this decision.

After driving for 1.5 hrs of what was supposed to be a 3 hr trip and just after crossing the Wyoming border (D and J engaging in our customary state border crossing high five in the process), snow started to fall. When I say fall, I mean our world became a snow globe. Looking at the weather report, the forecast now called for 6-12 inches (the original forecast was for 1-2 inches). The entire region was also now in a winter storm advisory (thanks Google). What to do? Turn back where the storm was supposed to drop closer to 12 inches or press on and try to “get on the other side” of the storm where it was supposed to be 6 inches. After switching drivers, adding gas and changing all our diapers, press on we did.

The drive was an adventure, but we made it to a little community park in Douglas where we crashed for the night, exhausted.  Why did we take the northern route again?