We got on the road at 9:25 a.m. We covered 535 miles in a little over nine hours today. We started in the lush green rolling plains of South Dakota, which slowly faded into the Badlands of Wyoming. The Badlands are still spectacular and as we drove through them, Nina and I wondered how the early settlers cross them in covered wagons. We had more two lane roads today as we drove to Mount Rushmore and then towards Old Faithful. Mount Rushmore was a lot more commercial than I figured it would be. We left Mount Rushmore with a little over a half of tank of gas on our way to Casper, WO. Nina started getting worried when the next town was 29 miles away and the on board message system showed we had 35 miles of gas left. Gas stations are few-and-far-between in this part of the country. The low fuel warning light came on just as we were pulling into a Conoco Station. The clerk in the Conoco Station was from Douglasville, Georgia, small world. Maybe I will try to keep it above a half tank from now on. This area is still open range, cows grazing and hay fields stretched as far as you can see. I cannot understand how there are any bugs left in SD from the look of our car’s front end. It is almost black with little bugs (our car’s real color is white). In addition to all the bugs, we saw many antelopes grazing, drinking, and roaming around. We also saw beefalos and buffalos. We stopped in Casper, Wyoming and went to stay a 3rd night in a Holiday Inn Express. Needless to say, we did not stay there. They wanted $133 @ night so we went (literally) on the other side of the parking lot to the Courtyard by Marriott and they gave us a room for $70! This hotel was also much nicer than the Holiday Inn Express so we will definitely try to stay in another tomorrow night wherever we decide to stop.
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