Saturday
Mar242012
Roadtrip review
Saturday, March 24, 2012 at 5:19PM
Headed back from Seattle last week with moms - here's a list of the spots we hit:
- Day 1: Seattle to Portland
-
Completely crap day. The Snoqualmie pass was closed due to snow so we had to head south and fight the rain and traffic out of Seattle and through Portland.
- Day 2: Portland to Bozeman
-
Probably the best driving day of the trip. The route along the Columbia River was spectacular, and even though it was raining and threatening snow in the mountains in Idaho, the views were incredible.
- Stopped for lunch in Coeur D'Alene at the Moon Time cafe.
- Day 3: Bozeman to Deadwood (Sturgis)
-
All I have to say about this drive is, get gas whenever you can...there's not much here. Little Big Horn was cool, but you don't need to spend too much time there. As for Deadwood, the Black Hills are fantastic but the town itself isn't really great, unless you want to drink and gamble, which isn't ever a bad idea. Deadwood has been pretty well commercialized so you won't really feel like you're in an old west town.
- Stopped at the trading post at LBH and had an "indian taco". It's basically some fried dough with taco meat, lettuce tomatoes and cheese layered on top. Pretty damn good.
-
On the way to Deadwood we decided to stop off at the Devil's Tower, the huge rock formation featured in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It's pretty cool, and I wish we had more time to hike around the base.
- Had a great steak at the Lodge at Deadwood just outside of town. Cool place, good atmosphere...seemed better than any of the options on the main drag.
- Day 4: Deadwood to Austin (MN)
-
Big fan of South Dakota now. We stopped at Mount Rushmore in the morning and it was incredible. Definitely worth stopping to see if you ever get up in that area. I'd love to go back and do some more serious hiking there. After that we decided to make a stop at the Badlands, and that ended up being the best decision of the week. The place is amazing, it's hard to even describe what it looks like.
- Day 5: Austin to South Bend
-
The main goal today was to get to Racine to see the fam, and along the way we stopped at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. We got to walk around a bit and see the lake, then stopped at State Street Brats for a brat and a beer, and some cheese curds. Good stuff. After seeing everyone in Racine we decided to keep going and get past chicago so the next day wasn't so long. So we made it to South Bend.
- Day 6: South Bend to Ellicott City
-
Not much to say here. We got home.
- We stopped for lunch around Cleveland to go to Melt Bar and Grilled, since it was featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Drives. I had a Reuben Melt and mom had a grilled chicken salad.
;)
;)