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My epic cross-country adventure

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Back in 1995,  me and and one of my best friends from high school were in our mid 20s.  Both of us had OK jobs, but nothing really with a lot of responsibly.  We were also both about to be promoted, and would soon have a lot more going on at work that would require us to be more focused.  So...we decided to take some time off and take a trip.  We ended up taking a little three weeks off.

There were 2 rules for the trip:

  1. Only take what we could each fit in a backpack
  2. We would have no plan or agenda, we would make it up as we went along.

Here's what we ended up doing... 

 

cross country map

We took off from Cincinnati in my red Jeep Wrangler (top down and doors off, off course) and started to drive towards the free way, we still hadn't even decided where we were going, until my friend said "Devil's Tower."  Sounded good to me.

The first stop of note on the way to the tower was Badlands National Park in South Dakota.  What a cool place.  We spent an overnight in the back country, and didn't see another soul once we got off the road.  There are no trails, so make sure you have a map (we got lost for a while.)  This is still one of my favorite places that I have been.  Count on seeing a lot of wildlife.

At some point we also figured out that we could hit Mt. Rushmore on the way.  Neither of us had ever seen it in person, and this was a trip to see all that we could see...  So here it is.

   mount rushmore Pretty cool...but not quite as majestic as I had hoped.  I guess my issue with Mt. Rushmore was that you couldn't get any closer.  It would have been much cooler to be able to see it up close.  Ah well..we had a date with Devil's Tower.

We got to Devil's tower right at sunset.  We were now 1,300 miles from home.  Here is our first view of the tower.

devil's tower sunset

That night we just pulled over and found some grass to roll our sleeping bags out on and crash.  At some point during the night, an old man woke us up with a flashlight.  It seemed we had bedded down on the outskirts of a campground.  The guy made us move onto the official grounds, and of course charged us.  We were too tired to care, and when we woke up, there was Devil's Tower in all its splendor.

devil's tower 

Right out of "Close Encounters," definitely worth the trip.  We hiked the loop trail around the base, lots of climbers ascending the sides.  Lot's of fun to watch.  But now we had another decision...where to from here?

I'll post part #2 soon.

 

 

 

 


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