Long Trip Is Over 2

It was very early last Thursday morning when Mia and I arose in the darkness and loaded our cooler and luggage into the Silverado.  We said our goodbyes to Honey who was going to be watched by a neighbor.  I am sure you are wondering why we didn't take her with us but we felt it would be an injustice to her and our neighbors at the motels if we just left her in the room.  She was very happy to see us when we got home and cuddled all last night.

We drove out Highway 18 to I-90 and started our long journey east.  We had planned to make Billings, Montana by nightfall and we actually succeeded.  The trip to Billings was uneventful.  We made several stops along the way to rest, stretch and use the facilities.  All of our stops were very short in duration due to the time constraints.  We had a little trouble finding a motel for the overnight stay but we managed to locate one and went to dinner at a small, family owned Mexican restaurant right across the street.  We ate light and went to bed early.

The first day obviously drained us more that we thought because we both slept pass the time we had planned to get up.  We had planned to be long gone before they served their free continental breakfast at 6 am.  We weren't so we stayed and ate before hitting the road.   It was enough to get us started on our way.

Our second day went pretty much the same as the first day.  We traveled a short distance out of Billings and decided to take Highway 212 to Watertown.  212 is a long stretch of two lane highway thru small South Dakota towns, farm and cattle ranches.  Some of my favorite scenery.  212 also takes you through the south eastern corner of Wyoming past the Crow Nation Reservation and the monument where Custer met his doom.

As we arrived in the small town of Faith, South Dakota we noticed the skies were turning dark.  This little town is about a third of the way across the state so we still had a good distance to travel.  As we headed east on 212 we noticed the winds were beginning to pick up and the sky was becoming darker and more eerie than we had ever seen before.  We had noticed the wind in Faith when we stopped for a quick bit from our nifty little cooler in the back seating area.

This little cooler runs on AC/DC and has room to store lots of goodies.  We were surprised at how much we could stuff in this cooler.  We took a smaller portable cooler with items that didn't need a cool environment.  This little cooler was plugged in and running most of the trip and kept us from spending bunches of money in restaurants.  We tried to have a good morning meal then snacked and made sandwiches for the day time and ate a decent meal at night.  This little unit ended up being a very handy in some adverse conditions a little further down the road.