The second leg of our Orlando to Seattle drive has begun! I (Erin) flew out yesterday morning to Minneapolis to meet Cora and my sister Allie. After a Father’s Day lunch, re-packing the van so that someone could actually sit in the back bench seat took a while, so we didn’t actually get on the road until 5pm. But we had a reservation in Chamberlain, SD that night, so we were determined to drive the 6 1/2 hours.

The funny thing about road trips is that ideally you want them to be uneventful, but when describing them later, it’s usually more interesting to have a story. Well, our car didn’t break down, the driving was quite lovely in that there were no huge semi’s and no traffic (ha!) on southeastern Minnesotan or South Dakotan highways,  and the scenery was green (see evidence below).  

The main two annoying things were: (a) driving in the dark, because, although we got the Literacy Lab checked out by a dealer and were promised that we would now be able to see the dashboard lights, we could not. We’re hoping there’s a knob that we’re missing that turns them on, but that did not help last night. (b) Cora had made a reservation at a Howard Johnson in Chamberlain, SD through Orbitz, but when we arrived, exhausted and ready to hit the hay at 12:15, there was no record of our (paid) reservation, which meant calling Orbitz, waiting 10 minutes on hold, explaining the problem, having Orbitz call the hotel, etc. etc. The gist is, it went through and we fell right to sleep at 1am.

Today is our sightseeing day, so we’re pretty excited! Our options are: Mt. Rushmore, the Badlands National Park, a Flintstones Theme Park apparently (thank you brochures in hotel lobby), and of course, “America’s Favorite Roadside Attraction,” Wall Drug! Unfortunately, we weren’t able to plan ahead for any book route stops, but who knows? Maybe we’ll set one up ad-hoc.