700 miles, road construction scattered throughout four states, dodging the floodwaters of the Missouri River, and driving in-and-out of Harley riders on their way to Sturgis--day one of the great American roadtrip vacation is in the books.
- The first road construction was encountered 17 miles from home. It became a pattern as I'm still daydreaming about orange cones and barrels.
- Spending time on Highway 59 through Iowa was nostalgic as that was the route my family took "back in the day" on our summer vacations to Minnesota. My reaction now is "wow--we really did that!?" The two lane highway was filled with truckers, forced to this route given flooding on I-29.
- Weirdest vehicle of the day: A van with Texas plates and a Philadelphia Eagles spare tire cover.
- North of Tarkio, MO is a wind farm with dozens of structures--modern-day windmills.
- The flooding on I-29 is the real deal. A McDonald's on I-29, just north of Omaha, had thousands of sandbags around the structure, still braced for the raging waters.
- Hundreds of signs along I-90 in South Dakota advertise all of the virtues of Wall Drug. Save your time--the tourist trap serves overpriced, low quality food, and the 40,000 square feet of the store is filled with every manner of kitschy tourist crap available.
- The Badlands are stunning!
When we went to Omaha in late June we saw those same windmills just outside of Tarkio...I couldn't believe how large those things were. I was blown away at their size. We saw them coming back home, and I estimate that we were still 10 miles from the border (Tarkio is right on the border) when we saw them.
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