To read from the start of our trip, click Thanksgiving ’25 adventures (Part 1)
As we started back home after spending Thanksgiving with my family in WI, we had good weather and clear roads.
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.
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)
The next morning, we headed up to Mount Rushmore and then drove through Custer State Park. It was a day of adventure! The views of Mt. Rushmore were NOT.
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.
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! 🙂