Day 3

and it's starting to show. This is not how the Ali Crew normally does road trips. Usually we drive here and there and follow our noses to interesting restaurants, to hot springs, to whatever catches our fancy. Not on the trip, Batman. This is a nose to the grindstone, get your ass across the country kinda trip. Like today, I wanted to detour to see Mount Rushmore, Devils Tower and Yellowstone - this would've added at least another day onto our trip and yours truly has to "report for duty on Monday at 0730" so needless to say we kept driving. Eric logged 526 miles today and that is no easy feat. Typing it doesn't sound so bad but DAMN those last 50 miles were enough to kill me. I really can't believe what a little trooper O has been. It's a good thing he was raised riding in the car or this would be torture. Today we stopped at at Wall Drug, South Dakota for lunch. It was horrible - in fact, the entire lunch break sucked big testicles (we saw a sign for a Testicle Festival - that's where that came from). The place was packed with crazy tourists and cameras and it was not very O friendly. We finally got lunch to go - drove into a Days Inn Hotel parking lot and used their picnic table. I was about to jump in their pool, too, that's about how desperate we were getting. Luckily, iced coffee for me and an lemon energy drink for E made us feel better and we hit the road hoping SD wouldn't be a total bust. Tonight we are in Mitchell, home of the world famous CORN PALACE . We took a drive around town and I gotta tell you South Dakota is not the place for me.

Roadkill Count:
Deer 5
Skunks 4
Coyote (?) 1

Live Animals:
A ton of antelope - holy smokes it was like in the song "ohhh give me a home where the buffalo roam, where the deers and the antelope play" they are awesome looking creatures.

Funniest Mini-Mart Names:
The Whoa and Go
Loaf and Jug

We also got a little delirious and started talking about what we would name our farm or ranch should we ever own one...here are the top contenders:
1. Rough Rider Ranch or R3
2. Almosta Ranch (said with a Spanish accent)
3. Gay Meadows
4. Happy Go Lucky Ranch
5. Lovin Life Farm
6. Open Spaces

OK - now that you have a sense of the craziness that overtakes when you wind your way through endless amounts of prairie...have a good night. Tomorrow we should be in Wisconsin.