Got kind of behind on posts. So this one might be a little longer. So when I left off last time I was going to sleep on a picnic table outside of Badlands. It was really eerie there because it was so desolate. It felt like a scene out of X-Files was about to take place any minute. Because of this I didn't want to fully enclose myself in my mummy bag, because I wanted to be able to see if anything was out there. I eventually fell asleep but was awoken by the sound of cats meowing, so I looked back over towards my Jeep and there was about 4 or 5 cats sitting there meowing. I'm not much of a cat person to begin with but that was really creepy. A short time later I heard coyotoes howling, and they sounded fairly close by. At that point I decided I would go back and sleep in my Jeep. Which is about as comfortable as sleeping in a wooden crate. By the time 5 am came around I decided I would head into Badlands, because I wasn't going to get anymore sleep. I got to the park just in time to catch the sunrise, which was amazing. After a short look around I headed to Wall Drug for some breakfast. It was still freezing cold. Wall Drug is like the Great Plains South of the Border. I did enjoy the 5 cent coffee though.
As I drove on west I went by a lot of abandoned homesteads. They always look cool, and I want to stop and explore them looking for cool antiques and whatnot, but then I remember that a few years ago during a pipeline survey I checked out a bunch of them and they have mostly been gutted on the inside. I bet the walls of them have plenty of stories to tell. I took a quick side trip into Deadwood, its a cool little mining town.
I finally made it to Montana around 6 pm, and still had about three more hours to go until Livingston. When I got to Livingston my friend Scott took me to the local watering hole, Murray Bar. I got a sweet cowboy shirt there and some lemonade drinks.
Friday morning was rough. But I had a McDonalds breakfast and got on the way. Seattle of bust, 702 miles. Montana goes on forever. I haven't seen much wildlife except for roadkill. After hours and hours of driving in Montana I finally made it to Idaho, and that went by pretty fast....apparently they are different shapes, so that's why Idaho was so much faster. I stopped for gas and and old man said You're a long way from home. I told him I was on my way to my way to Alaska and he said good luck. As I drove into Washington I was feeling failry tired. I went by a few rest areas, and they all had "Free Coffee" signs. When I finally stopped at one to get some free coffee, there was no free coffee, in fact there wasnt even an area where you could put coffee, unless it like came out of the soap dispensers in the bathroom, which it didnt. Oh well.
After a two hour traffic jam at Snoqualmie Pass I finally was on the home stretch to Seattle. I made it to Jeff and Shellys around 11pm. We watched some videos of Shelly wrecking her bike and had a few beers and went to bed.
I can't believe I still have the same distance to drive again....
Mulder!
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