from South Dakota to the middle of Montana, a long road.

Day Three was a long long day. We woke in Deadwood, after getting in late the night before, a few sleeps shy of fully rested. We had around 7.5 hours of driving to do, with no planned tourist stops or fun adventures to break it up. So how did i remedy this? by taking us off I-90 for about 200 miles. No this wasnt just for fun, it was the fastest way. I hate going out of our way to get to a destination, and that is what I-90 did for those miles. Before exiting, I called the other car to make sure that this plan was good with them. I was willing to stay on I-90 if that is what everyone wanted. Luckily, everyone wanted to get there faster and stay with the route we planned.

We got off at 212 and headed towards Wyoming and Montana. about 20 minutes into the drive, we all experienced some kind of freak out. the freak outs ranged from not wanting to drive in mountains (mind you we were only going up hill, no mountains to be found yet), not being able to call each other because we were off the beaten path/ between cell towers, being a new driver and not knowing what is going on, to feeling responsible because of choosing the route. we talked about turning around and heading back to I-90 but ended up staying on the path we planned.

The road back to I-90 was beautiful. LONG stretches of nothing but rolling hills and cows and deer/antelope (who can tell those apart from a distance, not this Wisconsin girl). we went through grasslands, foothills, small passes, a national forest, and headed towards Billings MT. We drove through the end of SD, into Wyoming for a while, and then into Montana. we stopped in a small town for lunch, the first one of reasonable size we had seen for 80 miles and still had miles and miles to go. though we got the "worlds best milkshake" that was actually really amazing. we hit all kinds crazy construction so in reality, this route wasn't an hour faster, but the construction was crazy! we had to be escorted by a truck through the mess, driving on Red Shale and weaving back and forth between sides of the highway and over dirt and around road equipment.

when we got to I-90 the landscape changed and it was definitely not as beautiful, but there we saw more people and more places to stop if we needed it.

once in Billings we got dinner around 5pm at our trusty Cracker Barrel and it was amazing. we were still about 2 hours from Bozeman so we headed out. on our way to Bozeman we could see the mountains shroweded in clouds in the distance. we had no idea if we were heading into them or going around. for most of the drive, we went around and those were just Giant Foothills. we could just feel Kevin Cursing our car and my name!


We did have to go through one range to get to Bozeman, and that was as the sun was setting and lightning was striking over the mountian. it was a bit nerve racking but Adam, as a first time Mountain drive, did exceptionally well, and we made it to Bozeman around 8:15.

Sorry, no Mountain pictures. the sky was cloudy and hazy and no photos turned out. but today we are driving from Bozeman MT to Spokane WA, all through mountains so we will get lots of pictures!

Hope you enjoyed this post, and we will post again soon. maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow or maybe even in a few days! it just depends on when we get in and how much energy we have. we appreciate you reading our blog and hope you check back again soon!