As many of you know, we love roadside attractions, and arguably none is more famous than Wall Drug in South Dakota (except perhaps for that Giant Ball of String I keep hearing so much about).  So I was VERY excited to learn we would be passing right by it.  This was another place Lee visited when he used to drive cross country and I have been hearing about it for 20 years now so it was definitely time for me to see it for myself!!  Before I get to that though, let me back up just a teeny bit.

We left Minnesota under not the best of circumstances.  It was pouring rain, 40 degrees, we were behind schedule a bit, and I got sick.  And we both knew that despite all that we needed to pull a couple more long days to get back on schedule.  We also knew that if we didn’t want to completely implode we needed to get back to our basics.  We had lost the joy in the trip itself somewhere along the way (I think for me it was Indianapolis) and grinding out a trip to Alaska like this wasn’t of interest to either of us.  Yes, we have a commitment to meet that necessitated longer drive days, but it didn’t mean that we couldn’t do that our way.  So despite my horrendous cold we both agreed to frequent breaks and switching drivers every time.  This way we could each drive for shorter periods and hopefully we could find something fun along the way to look at.  Lee being the sweetie that he is found the first place and surprised me with a lunch stop at a giant statue of The Jolly Green Giant in Blue Earth, MN.  You have to eat somewhere so why not at the feet of this cheerful character!

Green Giant aside though it was a rough day.  I haven’t been this sick in a while and the long days, and cold, rainy weather were not helping.  It did end on a more positive note though when we found a nice Passport America campground (Hill’s RV Campground) for $20 a night and we finally saw some sun towards the end of the day.

And the next day was Wall Drug!!  Not only did I want to see it but I actually needed a drugstore at this point! Well, Wall Drug did NOT disappoint.  It started as a very small pharmacy in the middle of nowhere, and when they were on the brink of closing the business, the pharmacist’s wife came up with the idea to offer free ice water to travelers on their way to see Mount Rushmore, and the rest is history.  You really have to see this place.  It is absolutely huge, so huge in fact, that it has a map, which we actually needed to use.

I really liked it.  We stayed for an hour and a half, ate a good lunch, and I finally got some Nyquil, which I desperately needed.

After lunch we drove for many hours through South Dakota and into Wyoming.  The views were beautiful and we saw several herds of pronghorn antelope, a first for me, but it was past 6pm when we finally rolled into Indian Campground and RV PArk in Buffalo Wyoming (our first 13 hour drive day since the first weekend we went full time).  Plus, there were no Passport America’s anywhere along our drive and we couldn’t find anything with 50 amp for our heaters and I wasn’t up for boondocking, so we were forced to pay $40 here.  The staff was super gracious when we arrived and the pull through sites were long but they were right on top of each other side-to-side.  We ate something, watched a Game of Thrones and then I took some Nyquil and crashed.  The next day we left at 8am and drove until 6pm landing in Shelby, MT right at the border.  I felt much better today though and even got to practice driving on some steep grades with long straight roads, which is great preparation for driving through Canada.  Tonight we are at Lewis & Clark Rv Park which is $34.75 with our Good Sam.  Overpriced for what we are getting but it’s quiet and the people at the front desk gave us lots of great Canada driving information.

My first antelope pic

So tomorrow we cross over and will have no cell phones (except texting on mine) until we hit Alaska.  I will be taking pictures and notes as we go, but have no idea if I will be able to get out a blog.  But if you are missing Camper Chronicles over the next several days, I put together a new page called Beautiful Places To See which has our blog posts from the most beautiful spots we have visited.  These are great posts to just skim the pictures if you are so inclined.  Looking for something meatier?    Check out Lee’s  DIY Mods Page (Outside) for those interested in all those cool changes he has made to the outside of the rig.   Take care and see you on the other side!

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