9 1/2 days, 3,385 miles, 6 states, 7 hotels, and three great friends make for quite the adventure. I have now added the Dakota's to my list of states and just have Maine to make all 50. The United States is an amazing country and the diversity is hard to believe unless you see it.
Chris and I made it home July 4 by 10 a.m. after a final stop in Fayetteville last night. We left Custer State Park
early on Tuesday, dropped Margaret off at the Rapid City Airport after breakfast so she could continue on to Colorado, then we hit the road towards home--1,151 miles! Did I mention South Dakota (and North Dakota) are huge states?! They are, and you will drive for miles and miles seeing nothing but wide open fields.
We made sure we always had a full tank of gas before heading anywhere. Our first stop was the outlet mall outside of Omaha, Nebraska.
The drive, for the most part, was really easy, but as we were nearing Omaha a huge storm sprang up with dark clouds, heavy winds, and rain.
I was a bit alarmed when so many trucks and other vehicles started pulling over on the side of the road. Chris was trying to get us a hotel room and I told her to check the weather on her phone to see if maybe there was a tornado coming, but it was just a thunderstorm, and thankfully did not last long. We were happy to leave the weather behind us in Iowa and get to Nebraska and some retail therapy. We made it to our hotel by 7:30 p.m. and had an early night.
We were up and on the road early heading to Fayetteville, Arkansas our final stop before home. While we were gone the floodwaters in Iowa and Missouri may have gone down some, but there were still many flooded fields.
This will impact our food prices I am sure, as many fields are underwater and what fields could be planted are way behind their usual schedule.
We were quite happy to see the welcome to Arkansas sign.
We had dinner with family in Fayetteville and another early night.
We were up and out by 7:15 a.m. and made it home by 10 a.m. We were unloaded, car cleaned out and turned back in by 11:30.
It is great to be back home. As much as I enjoy traveling, there is no place like home! I am unpacked, laundry is done and I have enjoyed reconnecting with my husband and dogs. The yard looks great—I do have quite a few weeding days in my near future, but the family did a great job taking care of things while I was gone. I harvested a few vegetables, watered a few plants and set about organizing the photos from the trip.
Happy 4th of July!