King of the Road - WI to MT

This would have been helpful
to know a few weeks ago...

The Black River Valley in WI

  Sunday I drove through the rest of Wisconsin to North Dakota. With an early start of around 7:30AM and 75mph speed limits the whole way, I figured today would be a good day to attempt a driving challenge: 1000 miles in one day! A rest stop in Wisconsin featured a scenic overlook of some pine barrens where I discovered the answer to a Quizzo question from a few weeks ago that our team didn't know regarding passenger pigeons.  Just a few weeks too late!

Nothing really to note along the way in Minnesota other than a lot of small lakes and ponds and a bunch of farms. That and some confusing road signs/GPS directions that led me to take the wrong exit when approaching St.Paul and then more confusing road closure signs that forced me get lost once again before finally finding the proper detour that got me going in the direction I wanted.

Mo and Dori in North Dakota

Only another 809 miles left to go on I-90

I was making good time until I noticed a a rest stop sign in North Dakota that indicated free wi-fi. Sweet – a good chance to take a short break, get online, and double check my directions on Google (as I had been debating travelling north on Rte 2 once entering Montana to drive through Glacier National Park instead of following I-90/I-94). No working wi-fi, but I did run into two touring cyclists who I spent around four hours talking with! It turns out Doris and her daughter Moirah have been on the road for aound 9 months so far and plan to continue riding for the foreseable future, exploring not only the rest of North America but the whole world. She shared a lot of stories and helpful hints and I provided some good websites for ordering cycling gear. I drove about an hour more after leaving the rest stop before calling it a night.

Entrance to the park

Monday's plan was to get to Butte, MT to partake in the five pound stromboli challenge at Trimbo's Pizza. Unfortunately, a combination of highway road closures in Butte and a malfunctioning, unreliable GPS system as well as a stop at a McDonalds to get online (which turned out to be an exercise in futility). The place didn't have a website and I would have called, but I did not have cell service anywhere in Montana or North Dakato... I showed up about 10 minutes after they closed at 9.

Some unique terrain in North Dakota

North Dakota and Montana were both pretty similar - mainly flat to rolling terrain and a lot of grass and farmland. Interspersed throughout the mainly flat terrain would be small, steep mounds of dirt.  I'm not sure the geological term for them, but they seemed pretty interesting.  The one place that I stopped to check out along the way was the Teddy Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota.  The portion off the highway had a nice scenic overlook looking out over an expansive section of badlands.

The Badlands in Teddy Roosevelt National Park

An interesting note about traffic and speed limits in some of these more desolate states.  Even though the speed limit is 75mph for cars (often 65mph for trucks), you rarely see people exceed that and often times people are driving slower.  I'm not sure whether this is because of fuel efficiency or if people just aren't always in a rush like they are on the east coast but it's definitely a little unique coming from the East Coast.  Also, once past Chicago I don't think I saw a single speed trap the rest of my trip. While on the subject of driving: in case you didn't know, Fu Manchu is the greatest driving music know to man...