Up and driving!

Thank you all for your prayers! We got out of White River much sooner than expected and reached our destination in Gillette, WY by 10:30. So let me quickly bring you up to speed before we head out for today’s journey.

I want to start with a shout out of “Thank You!” to Walt and Larry at Country Pride in White River, SD. They found the part we needed in Mission but had no way of going to get it. So Walt called one of his employees, who was home on her day off (!), and asked if she wanted to take a ride to Mission for a family in need–and she was happy to do it. So Larry called ahead and had them hold the part. Meanwhile, he pulled the Sub into the garage and started taking the wheel apart while we walked around town looking for shade and a school playground. We discovered that there is a motel in White River, SD; but we’re thankful we didn’t have to use it. At 3:22 I got a call from Walt saying the Sub was ready! Less than 2 hrs! Thank you Walt, Larry, and the driver for all your help. God bless you!

    

As a side note… Larry told me that he once met a guy traveling through the area on his bike tour across America 🙂 I told him that we were about to do the same thing, but on a more southern route.

Thanks to the quick repair at Country Pride, we still had time to enjoy the scenic drive through the Badlands. It was absolutely gorgeous! When we moved to PA 15 years ago and drove across from WA, the Badlands was my favorite site. I couldn’t wait to take the children through it. And they loved every stretch of it! We also got to see tons of prairie dogs, some bison, and even big horn sheep. It was a true highlight of our journey so far. I won’t be surprised if some of the children count it as their favorite place when this is all over.

It ended up being too late to see Mount Rushmore, the Black Hills, and the Devil’s Monument, so the kids are already planning their own trip to South Dakota! However, the Badlands Scenic Drive did bring us back to I-90 in Wall, SD where we were able to spend some time at the famous Wall Drug! It was great to finally see what all the 53 Wall Drug signs were about which we counted since entering South Dakota 🙂 But here again, we got to see so very little of this huge store that the kids are planning their own trip back.

By the way… what do you do when you’re driving for hours on end on the highway? Count roadkill. Since we left Cape Cod, we’re up to 227.

We had a great night’s sleep at the home of our friends Caleb and Alexa Nelson. They are away at the Banner of Truth Conference in PA but were glad to open their home for us. Since they were away, we snagged their wedding photo and a recent photo with their twins to join us for a group photo. Thank you Caleb and Alexa!

We went shopping this morning to get things for a homemade breakfast, sandwich stuff for lunch, and of course a stop by Starbucks.

We’re about to leave now… heading to Yellowstone. It’s over 7 hrs away so I’m not sure how much we’ll see, but we’ll get what we can on our way to our first hotel stop in Montana.

God bless you all. Thanks for following and for keeping us in your prayers. Please feel free to share the blog with others, the fun and adventure are only just beginning!

Until next time… 🙂