What did we do?
At this point in the journey it had been over 5 weeks since we left home. 5 weeks - and while that had gone by so fast, we were starting to feel the effects. I actually really missed grocery shopping and cooking in my own kitchen! Once we left Chicago we had several loooong days of driving ahead of us, so to make that a little easier on us, we made a point to stop and see a few places.
Nauvoo - Another church history site for us. We of course showed up 1.5 hours before closing and it's a whole town with fun things to do and tours of the old homes... Having little time, we politely asked for the 5 minute tour in the Brigham Young house and the bakery. We also walked the temple grounds which were beautiful!
Bloomington, Minnesota - Zack's cousin and her husband currently live here so we made a point to say hi to them. They offered to take us into the city but to be honest we just wanted to relax and have a much needed night in. It was fun to catch up with them and see where they have been for the last several months.Commentary by Z: Are you true Americans if you're 10 minutes away from the Mall of America and don't go see it? Cause that's us...Badlands National Park - This has been on our list of things to do for awhile so we were excited to get out of the car and see a National Park! It was so cool to see the transformation in the land; one second it's prairie with small rolling hills and the next, this dramatic scene sorta pops out of no where! Being winter, the park was nearly empty so we just enjoyed the scenery before we had to move on.Commentary by Z: Been wanting to come here ever since I read a biography about my boy Teddy Roosevelt. He used to have a ranch out in the badlands, can't imagine living out there. Awesome place though, would love to come back and spend a weekend camping!That hair and expression thoughMount Rushmore - We got up pretty early to see Mount Rushmore before the crowds came and it worked out because we didn't have to fight anyone for a good place to take a picture! Interesting fact - Mount Rushmore was created for the purpose of bringing in more tourism. It worked on us!
Drive from South Dakota to Utah - it was a long day, I think over 10 hours of driving, but the good news was that for such a long day, we never hit a breaking point where we felt like we would never get home. Also I feel like people give Wyoming a bad rap for having nothing along the drive but I thought it was pretty in it's own way...it helps that I don't ever make that drive though so it wasn't familiar. Where did we eat? Colonial House - We had a dinner break in Rapid City, SD and chose this spot to eat. The service was pretty quick and the food was good if you like traditional American food, which we do so it worked for us. Other food - this last leg of the journey took us through a lot of open space so when we could find food (fast food) we jumped on the opportunity not knowing when we would see food again. We tried to avoid food chains majority of the trip but there were some instances where it was more convenient to grab a quick bite and move on. Final Thoughts We are home! 6 weeks of driving around the USA complete! We will write a separate post about the trip overall but man is it good to be home :). Funny how excited I think we both were to see our house, to sleep in our own bed, and to go to a grocery store! We had a blast on this trip. 10/10 would recommend to a friend!Commentary by Z: I had spent so long wanting to get out and travel and see our country that it feels weird to be back, but I also was so ready to be done after 6 weeks living out of a suitcase. It definitely scratched my travel itch and was an amazing experience, one that I'll remember and talk about for the rest of my life.
