We left Tuesday the 2nd and made it to Mitchell, South Dakota by the first night. It's amazing how much quicker you can travel with no kids!! We did get pulled over once in Wisconsin for speeding but fortunately Brian just got a warning....good thing since he just got done paying a speeding ticket in New York. Geez!!
We found a hotel with our trusty new GPS and got extremely lucky to be staying in the same town as the famed Corn Palace!! I'd only ever heard of it from the AFN commercials but apparently it's quite the tourist destination. Before we hit the road again on the 3rd we went to take a couple of pictures of the crazy place. No, we didn't go in. It was closed that early in the morning and really I think the outside was quite enough for us. :o)
The next day we continued across South Dakota and decided to stop in at Mt. Rushmore. Unfortunately the clouds were very low on the mountains so there wasn't much to see. We didn't feel like paying the $10 fee to park and see nothing but a cloud (yeah, we're cheap) so we just did a drive-by and got a quick glipmse of it through the cloud. Oh well...I'm sure we'll be back someday with the kids.
Once we got into Wyoming, we stopped to see Devil's Tower and then spent the rest of the day driving through the state and into Montana where we spent the night. On Thursday we got through Montana, Idaho (where we stopped in a cute little town called Wallace for lunch) and then into Washington. Since we were making good time we decided to not head into Seattle right away so we found a neat B&B called Wellspring Spa outside of Mt. Rainier National Park and spent the night there.
It was a great place in the middle of the woods and instead of one building with several rooms, it consisted of many unique little cabins and even a tree house you could stay in. We chose the one with a private zen garden and hot tub!! Here are a couple of pics I took, but they really don't do it justice.
Our checkout wasn't til 11:30 so we slept in, enjoyed the breakfast the owner brought us in a little basket and drank our morning coffee in the hot tub. What a wonderful break from the road!
We headed up towards Seattle and stopped in the nice seaside town of Steilacoom for lunch before driving up to the city to see Brian's high school friend Abbey and her boyfriend Ethan. Abbey took us for a drive around the city and up to the top of the Space Needle, where obviously you get a great view of the city and Puget Sound.
On Saturday Brian had to report in to Lewis so Abbey and I headed downtown to the Pike Place Market to look around at all the neat stuff for sale and do a little shopping. What a fascinating place. It made me miss all the open-air markets in Europe!
Once Brian was done with work, we had lunch with Abbey then Brian and I said goodbye and headed down to his hotel in Fife so he could take me to the airport the next morning.
It was a great trip and I'm hoping that I can fly back at the end of July to drive back with Brian...although it will just be a straight trip back with no sight-seeing.
