Road Trips and Hike Reports

Wednesday was a long driving day.  We started out heading South on US-385 through Hot Springs SD and then East on US-18.  It was a very desolate stretch of plains for several hours.  Later, following the suggestions of our friend Bob (who was born in South Dakota) we were on SD-44 East of Winner and saw some gorgeous ravines and very dramatic bluffs of the Missouri River. We overnighted at Fort Randall Casino which was not a winner nor a very nice place to stay.  The hotel wasn’t awful but it was VERY basic and old but it was cheap.  The next day we spent most of driving East through Ohio on US-20. US-20 makes a very direct and generally high speed journey across many miles of Iowa.  We made a brief tour to visit an Iowa institution, Maid-Rite , in Waterloo.  It wasn’t Brian’s favorite lunch but the strawberry shake we agreed was excellent.  We visited a state park in Iowa, Backbone State Park. I had previously stopped at this large state park, Io...

Tuesday:  My charming evening in O'Neil became a bit less charming the next morning.  There were several inches of snow and little plow pushed mounds of snow in front, behind and on one side of the car which was parked on the street.  I shoveled for a few minutes using a borrowed snow shovel from the hotel.  I got so focused on the snow that I didn't remember to buy gas in O'Neil but I had enough to easily make it to a mini market in Orchard, Nebraska.  I also got a drink and breakfast burrito while I was there. The drive East on US-20 was mostly snowy but there were some small and some slightly longer stretches of roadway that were dry, protected by little drifts of snow in on the side of the road.  So there was a lot of alternating between 45 on the snowy stretches and maybe 55 in the clear spots.  It was only about 120 miles to get to Sioux City Iowa but conditions got worse as I got nearer to Iowa and there were ominous warnings about massive snows...