Road Trippin' The USA: Eight Weeks Across America, Part 6

Much like the road to hell, my journey was paved with good intentions.  What I learned was that intentions or not, I often found myself falling off my plan.  I'm quite a planner and had meticulously determined my route and where I would stay each night of this adventure.  That didn't last all that long.  I still stayed essentially on my route, but things always changed along the way.

In Hot Springs, South Dakota, my hostess, Olivia, asked if she could tag along that day when I visited Mount Rushmore National Memorial and the Crazy Horse Memorial.  Since she wasn't terribly far out of my way and I'd be doing some backtracking anyway, I couldn't refuse.  But, we got a much later start than I'd originally planned (I think it had something to do with a late night of talking and beer!) so it was going to severely limit the amount of time that we could spend at each memorial. 

To get to Mount Rushmore from Hot Springs, South Dakota, one must travel through Custer State Park.  As we had a specific destination in mind, we didn't have the chance to spend a great deal of time in the park, but as usual, we did spend more time than expected.  As we were driving up the two-lane, we found the road blocked by a group of bison, so I stopped the car to wait them out.  The car stopping interested them and apparently they found it enjoyable to surround my car.  I got wonderful views of bison, but we were stuck there for a little while until they moved off the road.  Once they decided we were boring and moved away, we continued on our route.    

We had to get on our way and after thanking Olivia for her hospitality and returning her back to her doorstep, I was off to Nebraska.  I'd never been to Nebraska!  Well, for that matter, I hadn't been to South Dakota or Wyoming before, either!  This was turning out to be a lot of firsts and it was fantastic.

My plan was to camp in a campground at Fort Robinson State Park in Northwest Nebraska.  I made it to the campsite in plenty of time to get my tent set up and whip out the Peanut Butter and bread for dinner.  Then I snuggled in my sleeping bag for an evening of reading by the lantern before going to sleep.  By the way, it's really cold at night in October in Northwest Nebraska.

Links to previous posts in this series can be found at the bottom of this page!

 Jennifer St.Antoine, Gather Travel Correspondent 

Jennifer's column, Road Trippin' The USA, published every other Friday to Gather Essentials: Travel, is a chronicle of her experiences traveling the Roads of America.  In addition to regular installments of Jennifer's eight week adventure across the country, on alternate Fridays Road Trippin' The USA includes her other experiences on America's roads, including recommendations and warnings for places to see, stay and eat.

You can find all of Jennifer's Road Trippin' the USA articles at  www.gather.com/roadtrippintheusa

You can keep up with all of Jennifer's articles and her other Gather activity by joining her Gather network. Just click here: ladyjadegd.gather.com and select the orange JOIN button on the left side of the page. 

You can find Jennifer and other Travel Enthusiasts at travel.gather.com

 ~ Read Eight Weeks Across America, Part 1 HERE!

 ~ Read Eight Weeks Across America, Part 2 HERE!

 ~Read Eight Weeks Across America, Part 3 HERE! 

 ~Read Eight Weeks Across America, Part 4 HERE! 

 ~Read Eight Weeks Across America, Part 5 HERE!