Day 33 - Iowa City, Iowa.

Just back from our evening swim in this hotel's luxurious pool area, and I'm feeling inclined to share some pics with you all.

Mt. Rushmore was one of those things we fit in because it was on our general route. Yes, it's as much of a landmark as the Eiffel tower, but a mountain right in the middle of America isn't something you desperately plan a 6 week trip around. Still, we were in the area so of course we had to see it!


For anyone who doesn't know, this monument depicts four old presidents: Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln, in that order - we actually knew all but Roosevelt without doing any background reading. Mattias wanted it to be Roosevelt, but I was convinced that he was president during World War II, and because the moment was finished in 1941 I was sure he couldn't have gotten his own face up there. We were both right - and wrong; there have been two Roosevelt presidents, one at the turn of the century (Theodore, and the one in the monument) and one, like I thought, during WWII (Franklin D, not in the monument). While the other three are much earlier, we guess Theodore Roosevelt was included because he founded a lot of national parks.

That was today's history lesson - now on to other things! All the way from Yellowstone and into South Dakota, we'd noticed a lot of bikers going our way. At first, we figured it was because we were driving on the smaller roads. We could imagine it'd be pretty boring and stressful driving a motorbike on the interstate roads. But eventually there was just too many bikes for it to be a coincidence. They were in every hotel and petrol station, and we saw a lot of shops and restaurants displaying special "bikers welcome"-signs. Finally we asked at the Custer inn and found out that in the first week of August, bikers from all over the country gather in Sturgis in western South Dakota for a week-long rally event. This is what the parking lot at Rushmore looked like:


The week doesn't start properly until tomorrow (Monday) and we've been seeing literally thousands of bikes going the other way all day yesterday and today. Apparently Sturgis has over 500 000 bikers visiting every year! That's nearly the population of all of South Dakota. We hear that there's a lot of drinking and nudity during the Sturgis week, and considering the general shape of bikers, we're not too sad to be going in the other direction ^^

So, today we crossed into Iowa, praying and hoping for a change of scenery. This is what we got:


You guessed it... Corn fields! With some hills! Apparently it's farmland all the way to New Hampshire now.

Here's a special pic for my dear friend Kim. I think this is where Engla originates from:


We do feel a little tried of the driving now, and the homesickness is starting to set in. However, there is a light on the horizon. After looking at countless expensive hotels, we've found a reasonably priced, perfectly located cute little B&B near Providence in Rhode Island (yes, in, not on - it's not actually an island) where we're booked in for four nights to round off our long, big trip with a little rest and relaxation by the sea. Still another few nights to go until then, but we also have Niagara Falls to look forward to!

Don't get me wrong, we're still having a good time. We have some good talks in the car on days like this, when there's a lot of driving to do. And there's always something special to light up every day, like these two perfect milkshakes we were served today at a 50's style diner:


Side-by-side two flavour milkshakes, served in tall glasses (not plastic!) with whipped cream and a cherry on top. Beautiful! I had a vanana flavour, and Mattias had the chocilla. You figure it out :)

Day 32 - South Dakota

Just a quick note from the hotel in Sioux Falls in eastern South Dakota.

We went to see Mt Rushmore today, but since it was the only interesting thing we saw all day I can't be arsed even uploading that one pic. We've spent the rest of the day travelling 350 miles on the interstate through road work and corn fields. Oh yes, corn fields. So. Many. Corn. Fields. I hope the usual change of scenery takes place when we drive into Iowa tomorrow because if I see another corn field I might just light a match and make a lot of popcorn out of it.

We also had our weakest cup of coffee so far here. Well Mattias had (some) - after seeing the colour I gave it a miss. I actually thought for a second they'd brought us tea. Mum, you would suffer over here :) I really miss our coffee grinder...

It's one big, long drive from here to Niagara Falls which is our next planned stop along the road. I think that's about 4 days away. Hopefully we'll find something interesting before that though!

Just no more corn fields.

Please.

Yellowstone and the Rocky Mountains

Hello folks!

No update yesterday since we both went to bed absolutely shattered at 9pm. The night before, I had a spot of food poisoning and spent the better part of the night running between the bathroom and the bed. Of course, that kept Mattias awake and he slept even less than me, because when I finally fell asleep from exhaustion, he couldn't get back to sleep for another couple of hours :/

However, we were on a rather tight schedule, having booked the next three nights in inns with quite long drives between each. There was no way we could fit in an extra day, because it being weekend and close to national sites, all the cancellation dates had passed. We had a choice of going on or paying twice for every hotel.

So we bravely faced the huge Yellowstone National park tired and sick! It's a very large park and to even get close to watching a bit of everything, you need a full day, fully awake. Most of the sights are connected to the active geological area of Yellowstone. The most famous sight is of course the geyser Old Faithful which erupts every 90 minutes, give or take 5 minutes. Luckily for us, we had seen a lot of similar things on our trip to Iceland last year, so even though we skipped a lot of stuff, we were safe in the knowledge that we'd nearly seen it before! A lot of hot mud pots, mini geysers and hot springs, and all around, a lot of dead trees:


We settled for seeing the bubbling Fountain Paintpots (very cool white, boiling mud - doesn't really show well in pictures though) and Old Faithful. We also drove through a large part of the park simply by going from one side to the other.

Here's the crowd in anticipation of Old Faithful:


And there she blows!


We'd heard a lot about the nature in Yellowstone and how fantastically beautiful it was. What we found was a landscape slightly different from what we'd seen around the states, but... Strangely similar to Sweden. At an elevation of over 8000ft (2400m), the climate was considerably colder than most places, and the landscape looked a lot like the Dalarna area. As a result, we weren't too impressed with the surroundings. But we did see some things you don't see in Sweden! As we were heading for the park exit, we came up to a big congestion of cars. Everyone was getting out and taking pictures of this handsome guy:


We also saw bison and a moose. Now we've seen everything from flamingos to eagles. We probably missed the chance to see a bear, and we're not terribly upset about that :)

If Yellowstone was a bit of a letdown, what with the sickness, tiredness and the Swedish landscape, the next part was way, way above expectations. For a couple of hours yesterday, and several hours today, we've been crossing the Rocky Mountains, and let me tell you that no pictures will ever do them justice. It really felt like you were right in the backbone of the country, the exposed skeleton of a continent:




After a good night's sleep (11 and a half hours!), we couldn't have asked for anything better. As impressive as the Grand Canyon, for miles and miles absolutely free!

We set two records while driving today. As the car climbed higher and higher, the temperature sank dramatically. It dropped down to 4C as we drove through some rain. So while here, we've seen temperatures between 4C and 45C! At its highest point, the pass was at an elevation 9033ft (2753m). Mattias has been to the Alps, but this was the highest I've ever been. You won't be surprised to hear that we drove through an actual cloud around this height. Trust me, it's not fog, it's a cloud:


Luckily for me, that cloud hid the sheer drop on my right side. If you can't see it, it's nothing to worry about :)

Now we're in the small town of Custer in the Black Hills national park area. The town is of course named after General Custer of the battle of Little Bighorn. This is an important area, both to the native Americans and to the more-recently native ones. There are a lot of memorials and monuments around here, the most famous of which is Mt Rushmore (with the four presidents carved into rock). We're going there tomorrow.

We'd planned on seeing the Crazy Horse memorial tomorrow as well, being just four miles from here, in the Rushmore direction. However, while I was waiting for the tumble dryer to finish (more laundry, yay), I saw a poster about a nightly laser show at the memorial, so we took a trip there this evening instead.

The Crazy Horse memorial is another rock carving, and will be the largest sculpture in the world when finished. It's been slowly in the making for over 50 years, and since the original sculptor died in 1982, his family has taken over. The heads of several native American tribes came together and asked the sculptor to create this memorial over Crazy Horse because they "would like the white man to know that the red man has great heroes, too". It will be several times larger than Mt Rushmore when completed and has thousands of years of history behind it. To me, it felt like this memorial was perhaps the most important one I will see here.

So far, progress on the memorial has been very slow, mostly because it's not state funded. For a long time, it was just the sculptor (whose name escapes me - he was of Polish origin anyway) himself working on it, carrying all the tools and dynamite for hours every day just to get up and down the mountain.

Now, the face is complete and since it was unveiled, the memorial has attracted more people and thus generated more money. The progress is a bit faster now.

Here's a full shot of the work site:


And here's a close up of the face:


Here's the model that the sculptor made. We promised ourselves to come back to see it if it becomes finished in our lifetime :)


Crazy Horse is pointing towards his homeland. It's said that when the white man asked him "where is your land now?" he replied "my lands are where my dead lie buried". That would be pretty much all of North America. Crazy Horse famously never signed a treaty, and never bargained with the white man. He also didn't want his picture taken, and there is some controversy as to whether this sculpture is actually appropriate. There's apparently strife between different parts of the native American community. In any case, I think it will be a remarkable and fabulous thing if it's ever finished.

The light show was pretty good, according to Mattias (I forgot my glasses in the car and couldn't see much) but the history behind it was much more interesting. We also had the chance to see some real native American crafts in the museum and gift shop. The stuff we've seen before (in tourist shops) has unfortunately had "Made in China" stickers on them when you turn them over...

So, tomorrow it's further into South Dakota as we continue the last leg of our road trip!

Until then.