Our plan on our Thanksgiving road trip was to stop at several National Parks and National Monuments along the way. Our thought was “we are in the area, why not take advantage of seeing these places?”.
If you read my previous posts (Part 1 and Part 2), you know we encountered less than ideal weather conditions throughout the entire trip. We didn’t do any hiking along the way as we had hoped.
No matter what the weather is doing, Jewel Cave is a great option to explore. The cave is protected from the weather (obviously underground) and a constant temperature.
The cave monument consists of over 200 miles of known caves in about a 4 square mile area. In the map in the picture above, you can see the extent of the cave system. The colors indicate the depth of that portion of the cave.
We opted to take the 20 min tour with a ranger that day. The other option was a few hours later and would have been around 90 mins. We’ll come back in the future and do the longer tour.
The tour took an elevator down to the main cave entrance to a large chamber. They have airlock doors between the elevator lobby and the chamber because the cave “breathes”.
This chamber is quite large. Stairs are installed throughout the areas that the tours go, and this chamber is the starting point.
The variety of colors and features in this chamber are beautiful!
The ranger gave us a history of the cave explaining that the Native Americans in the area knew of the cave for hundreds of years, but the original entrance was about the size of a basketball. Then at the turn of the 20th century, some gold prospectors found it and blew the entrance open with dynamite.
They explored the caves extensively and never found gold or any other mineral worth mining. After that failure, they tried another venture only to have one fail as well. As a last-ditch effort, they began offering cave tours. They asphalted paths for the tours and eventually were able to make a bit of a living with that.
Once the park service took over, the asphalt was removed, and other materials were used which are more friendly to the environment of the cave. The tours continue to today.
She then talked about the formations within the cave pointing out a couple of them that I can’t recall the names of. But one was something they referred to dogtooth crystals. They definitely look like teeth!
She also pointed out another mineral that shows up looking like tree limbs or snowflakes depending on exactly where. She said people often think they are fossils but are actually this particular mineral. It was beautiful!
I highly recommend a stop at Jewel Cave. We will be going back when we’re in the area next time. Check it out!
As we started back home after spending Thanksgiving with my family in WI, we had good weather and clear roads.
Beautiful red barn against the snow – GORGEOUS!!!
We made it to Jackson, MN that first day driving back, headed into town for dinner, and then went to bed early. There was plenty of snow on the ground from the storm that had blown through a few days earlier.
When we got up to leave Tuesday morning, the truck said it was 3 degrees!! I always tell my husband when either of us complain about the gray, rainy days in the Pacific Northwest, that I’d take that over blindingly sunny, take your breath away cold back in the Midwest. This was one of those days – beautiful, clear day (from inside) but brutally cold!
As we headed west that day, we knew we would end up in warmer weather as we were driving out of the polar vortex.
‘Dignity’ statue at SD rest area.
On our way to Rapid City, SD, we stopped for gas in Mitchell, SD and I made Hubby drive past the Corn Palace. I remember stopping here as a kid and knew he needed to see it. (He’d argue otherwise. His life is complete without seeing or stopping at tourist traps).
The Corn Palace is literally made out of corn. Husks, cobs, stalks, etc. I was there on a family vacation when I was 13, and it had been around long before that.
From there, we continued west and took a quick drive through the Badlands National Park. I had also been through here on that same family vacation. This time of year is beautiful with the snow. But, because there wasn’t much sun that day, the color striations in the hills didn’t stand out quite as much as I remember.
In the 20ish miles we drove, we saw more wildlife than all the years combined we’ve been in the North Cascades National Park. We saw pronghorns (like an antelope), bighorn sheep, turkeys and bison!
We will definitely come back to this park in the future and explore it on foot. It is also a dark skies park, so we’ll enjoy trying to see the night sky while staying there.
Continuing west, we headed into Rapid City. (Coming out of the Badlands NP, we were in Wall, SD but I couldn’t convince hubby to even drive past Wall Drug)
We stayed in Rapid City for 2 nights in a cheap Travelodge motel. (This was the trip of cheap motels.) It had been updated but definitely had opportunities. It was a sufficient place to sleep and that was what mattered. (And it was pet-friendly)
From Mt. Rushmore, we headed to Custer State Park, but due to winter road conditions, we had to take a detour route (there’s a 7 mile section that is closed in winter). It was a pretty drive.
We stopped into the Visitor Center and knew that the wildlife loop was open, so we kept driving through. The drive through Custer State Park was quite foggy. We were able to see quite a few animals, but no views of the surrounding landscape.
Foggy drive thru Custer State Park
We were glad to get back to the motel that afternoon and relax.
The next day was much clearer. We drove back up to Mt. Rushmore and were actually able to see it.
From there we headed to the town of Custer and then out of the area, back to I-90 heading west. We did stop along the way to see the Jewel Cave National Monument. (I’ll do a separate post about this) We stopped for the night in Sheridan, WY.
I wouldn’t mind going back through Sheridan and exploring it a bit more. When we left the next day, we stopped into Java Moon coffee shop. It was very cute. I love a small-town coffee shop where all the old folks gather for morning coffee and friendly catchups. This seemed to be the place for that.
We then drove to Missoula, MT for the night. It was a beautiful day driving through Montana and getting to see spots that we had driven through in the dark on our way east. By the time we got to Missoula, it started snowing. As we pulled off the interstate, it got pretty heavy.
We pulled into the CostCo for gas, and then hubby suggested we go inside and check out what they have that is likely different from our CostCo. We left with a Christmas tree as we figured by the time we got home, our CostCo would be sold out. Turns out, the Missoula CostCo had sold 6 trees in 4 days. People there, spend $5 to go cut their own from the forest rather than buying them. Last year, our CostCo had sold out in less than 4 days.
By evening, the snow seemed to have stopped, but the next morning as we were leaving, it looked like it was still trying to start snowing again.
Thankfully, the drive home that final day looked worse than it turned out to be.
It rained through the mountains, then to a bit of snow at Lookout Pass (Montana/Idaho border), but road conditions were good.
We took advantage of the lower gas prices in Idaho before crossing back into Washington and stopped at a rest area. We had to park in the trucking area and saw these guys idling at the rest stop.
We were glad to get home. While we loved getting to spend the holiday with my family, we will never drive cross-country at this time of year again.
There are gorgeous areas across this whole country that we look forward to revisiting in the future. We will do it with our trailer so we can spend time exploring on foot and not just driving straight through.
As my husband & his daughter say when things aren’t going quite as well as hoped, “we’re making memories”. We definitely made some memories on this trip! 🙂
Hubby & I headed to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving to spend the holiday with my parents, my younger brother & his family.
We decided early on that we weren’t flying (flying at Thanksgiving is CRAZY!!!) and we would drive. We have a geriatric dog that my husband doesn’t want to leave, and the dog can’t fly.
What an adventure it turned out to be!
Growing up in the Midwest, I knew that this would potentially be a risky deal as weather is very unpredictable this time of year. I packed an emergency bin (that hubby thought I was going overboard with packing) but we were prepared should anything happen.
Thankfully we didn’t need to use the emergency bin, but I’m very glad we had it along. (Snow pants, hats, scarves, emergency blankets, snowshoes, micro-spikes and extra winter coats.)
Inspecting the room or put himself in the corner, not sure which LOL
We left the Sunday before Thanksgiving and headed east on I-90 across Washington, the Idaho panhandle and Montana. In eastern Montana, we headed north on I-94 through North Dakota.
Heading out of the PNW on I-90Bullfrog Overpass near Cle Ellum, WA (oops, emergency demo due to damage from an oversitzed truck)Central WA fog bank heading across the Columbia rivier
On our first morning, we had a beautiful sunrise as we drove through eastern Montana. And a beautiful drive to Dickinson, ND for our 2nd night.
We were able to stop into the visitor center of Teddy Roosevelt National Park and take a quick look around. We chatted with the ranger and got lots of info and advise from him for a future visit. We’ll come back in a better season to check out that park.
The next morning things started getting a bit snowy!
Eastern MT sunriseMorning start in Dickinson, ND
We headed east out of Dickinson, ND knowing that there was a winter storm coming through. It was an interesting day driving to say the least.
We drove anywhere from 15-50 mph in an 80-mph zone from Dickinson to Fargo. Along the way, we started seeing vehicles in ditches, semi’s or fifth wheels jack-knifed and overall, really bad driving conditions. Several times, the wind would catch the backend of our pick-up truck and cause us to fishtail a bit. I’m very thankful that my hubby did such a great job driving that day.
Near white-out conditionsNot-to-scenic view15 mph drivingWrong-way trucker
At one point, traffic slowed and as we passed, we saw the above semi heading west-bound in the left lane of eastbound I-94! We didn’t see any tire marks that indicated how he got that way. The center median between east & west bounds wasn’t broken, there were no tire marks in the ditch, and we didn’t see any slide marks that would have gotten it spun around. It’s a mystery!
We pulled off the road in Fargo to let the dog out and decided we were done for the day. I called the hotel chain and explained the situation, and they graciously refunded our points for the night so we could then use them book a night in Fargo. There was no way it would have been safe to continue on for several more hours. (We learned later that I-94 westbound in western MN had closed due to a 15-vehicle pileup. I’m not sure if that would have closed eastbound, but I’m glad we didn’t try to find out.)
By the next morning and a good night’s sleep, conditions were significantly better. We left Fargo and headed toward mom & dad’s. It was fairly snowy the whole rest of the way and we drove slower than the speed limit, but it worked out just fine. We arrive safely.
View from our room in Fargo, NDStorm had stopped, roads were better
We enjoyed a very nice time with my family over the holiday. My SIL was working on Thanksgiving, so we had the traditional dinner on Friday. But we got to hang out all day with family both days, which was fantastic!
Saturday, winter storms hit southeastern WI with 8-10″ of snow. It was beautiful and nice to be cozy at mom & dad’s for the day. We were glad we had 4-wheel drive.
Snow in mom & dad’s front yardSilly selfie
We had a wonderful visit with family and were glad we were safe!
