Saturday, August 13, 2016

We left the Rochester hotel at 8 am and continued our journey west after filling the car with gas. We had to keep reminding each other that we needed to fill the tank with gas when we stopped because we had forgotten a few times and we had to quickly find a gas station.

We were fortunate that we had gained an hour when we traveled through Chicago the previous day because that allowed us the time to drive a little longer. With almost 13 hours worth of driving behind us we had just over 20 hours of driving left and a couple of time changes.

Our goal was to drive approximately 12 hours in order to reach Billings, Montanna and find a campsite there before nightfall. The fact that we would travel through another time zone ( from central to mountain time ) should give us enough time to reach our destination before the sun set.

We drove several hours through the plains of Minnesota before we stopped for a nice brunch. We then continued to South Dakota until we reached the badlands, passed the famous “ Wall Drug “ store (that was advertised for 100 miles) and then reached Rapid City.

It was mid afternoon and we decided to have an early supper and when we saw the sign for “ Fuddruckers “, we all agreed that we would like one of their world famous hamburgers. After we ordered our 1/2 pound hamburgers, we sat down in a both that was surrounded by Elvis memorabilia.

Here’s a fun fact: Did you know that Carol Miller, Spencer and Braeden’s grandmother, met Elvis Presley many years ago when he was still quite young and he kissed her on the cheek??? Hmmm….

For those of you who don’t know Spencer, here is a picture of him at one of our stops.

And here is a picture of Braeden.

We left Rapid City with full stomachs and headed towards Wyoming. We crossed the north east part of Wyoming before entering plains and the rolling hills of Montanna. We got to Billings just at dusk, so when we reached the KOA campsite, we had to set up our tents in the dark.

It had been another long day, so shortly after we set up the tents we were asleep.