Road Trip: Day 20

Today was a recovery day, but for some reason I kept waking-up before my alarm goes off. I forced myself back to sleep for a while then hung-out around the hotel catching-up on the internet. I checked-out of the hotel and watched a rabbit enjoy breakfast next to the G8 before driving out towards the interstate.

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This was the fist day I’ve spent time on an interstate in a while and it was really boring. I took the time to think about my “Top Driving Experiences”. As I recalled all that I’ve done over the past couple years a couple stood out:

#1) Bondurant “nose-to-tail”
#2) Miller Motorsports Park FR500S “Dogfight”
#3) GoatRun 2011 Valley of Fire cruise
#4) Switchbacks on US-212 (Yesterday)
#5) Mt Hamilton descent

After a couple hours I was finally able to turn off the interstate and drive on some interesting roads. The primary objective for today was to visit Devils Tower National Monument, and hopefully not get abducted by aliens.

The road leading towards and away from Devils Tower was decent, but the “sharp corners ahead” road signs (with flashing lights) made them a bit more entertaining. I had fun trying to navigate the entire section with the cruise control activated (at the 65mph speed limit).

Several days ago I planned in my mind what my daily G8 photo was going to be for today. When I found the proper location I parked and waited for the perfect moment (when the clouds weren’t putting the tower in a shadow).

After grabbing a few more photos (without the G8) I made my way into the park. Since I already had the photo that I came for, there wasn’t anything I wanted to do there. Fortunately since I have the annual park pass it was “free”. Good thing too… I stopped for less than a minute at the base of Devils Tower!

For the past few days I’ve been looking for a place to take a photo of the G8 with the golden leaves on the groves of aspens. There were quite a few in the areas around Devils Tower, and I found a great place for a photo.

The last part of my day was spent driving into South Dakota to my hotel for the night. While I was adding the South Dakota sticker to my US map I realized that I’m not going to be going to North Dakota on this trip… darn!

The G8 Nationals is quickly approaching, but I have one more area to drive before I head straight to Bettendorf. Tomorrow is going to be a day full of twisty roads!