Day One Saturday 
We got up a little late at V’s house and ended up leaving at 7:30. We stopped in a town just inside Missouri to get some hog magnets and an atlas and some water. They didn’t have hog stuff, so we left sad. Just prior we had danced in front of the Missouri line. The whole state was pretty boring, although KC was kinda cool. Just north of town, we stopped to eat lunch at Panera ; it was great. We grabbed one cache at a rest stop just north of there and moved into Iowa. They didn’t have a welcome center, so we moved on until we came to one of the points where Nebraska was close. We jumped over the river to the Lewis and Clark trail center outside of Nebraska City. We talked to the guy at the counter there for a bit, bought some honey sticks and a post card and went looking for the cache. We searched all over this big wooden replica, but it turned out that our cords were off. We found the cache pretty easy over in a picnic area. We jumped back across the line and headed north to Omaha. There we decided to go for a quick PnG. We got lost and decided to keep trekking north to Blair, NE. Once there we stopped at a veteran memorial and found the cache. Then I went over to Walgreens and got some local sports team shirt. They are the Blair bears. Awesome. We drove back across the river and stateline and jumped out for our first Iowa cache at a truck stop. It was hidden in an electrical box attached to a light pole. Obviously didn’t belong. We then decided to cut north into MN. We kept screwing around with the GPS and it gave us all sorts of directions (good and bad). As we crossed the line, we saw this little state sign. So I stopped and we dance some more. We had hit MO, IA, NE and now MN on our dancing state line stops. We grabbed the three caches in MN as the sun set and the cold rain came in. We stopped on the way through Sioux Falls and had some nice Arbys food. I ate way too much, but it was good. On our way to the hotel in Mitchel, we were detoured by a cop. He sent us north to some road that looked like it was out of Jeepers Creepers. Creepy. We hit some bad rain, and when we made it to Mitchel (thanks to the atlas and NOT the GPS), the town was flooding. There was water everywhere and we couldn’t find our hotel. Finally we found it and crashed for the night. They had received softball sized hail earlier that day, so I was worried about the rental, but we made it through the night.

  Day Two Sunday 
We got up bright and early and headed to the Badlands. On the way, we stopped at the Minuteman Missile site and decided to go on a tour of the launch control center. It was awesome! It was just Chelsea, the ranger and myself. We talked about how there are still several missiles left active in the US and how we were not far from a mutual destruction with Russia. Awesome! We went down 40 ft or so into a capsule that was vibration isolated from the shock of a nuclear missile blast. They each have control of ten missiles and can have up to 50. After that, we went into the Badlands National Park. Here we took lots of pictures and managed to make a video dancing with some people from Canada. They were really nice and the dad seemed to like the dancing. There were fossils in the area. At the gift shop, I bought Chels a buffalo head band. It has horns and everything. One of the caches we found involved us hiking to a geographic marker and recording the erosion of the dirt around it. We did some math and figured like 0.16” a year! We got our first glimpse of some prairie dogs here. We left the Badlands and headed to Devil’s Tower. Heading there, we decided to stop at the WY welcome center. The only problem was that it was closed. So we drove the wrong way up the exit ramp for it and made the grab; it was in plain view of the interstate and the local road, but we got the cache! On the way there, some prairie dogs were in the road and we had to wait for them to cross. They were oblivious. We hiked the trail around the monuments and went on our way. On the way out, we grabbed a nice cache with a view. It wasn’t much of a cache, but the view was awesome. We then headed back to Rapid City to visit Mt Rushmore. We stopped on the way to grab a cache that was supposed to have a few TBs. Well it didn’t but it did make for a nice short hike in the woods near the view. Once we got to Mt. Rushmore, we decided not to pay to get inside and instead just took pictures outside. When we arrived, there was just enough light to see the faces. We waited a little bit and then the lights came on. We got several pictures and went back to the hotel in Rapid City, stopping at Little Caesars and Dominoes to get dinner. The hotel was a little nicer than the one we stayed at in Mitchel.  

Day Three Monday
We started the day in Rapid City, SD and headed due north. I’ve never driven on such a straight road. On the way there, we stopped in Belle Fourche to find the geographic center of the US. We stopped at a gas station and it was there we had our first hiccup of the trip; as a lady backed out of the gas station, she didn’t see us and she bumped against the car. We had a slight scratch and a small dent near the wheel well. It bothered me a lot, but the rental company seemed cool. I got the lady’s info and we went to the geographic center monument. It was only the center because of the addition of AK and HI. We couldn’t find the cache, so we rolled on to ND. On the way, we stopped at a local fire department and got a cache there. It was a huge tin with some decent swag. Chels grabbed a harmonica. We finally made it to the state line and got out to dance. I turned on the GPS and discovered there was a cache nearby. It was hidden near a fence post and was a small lotion type bottle. We made our first grab in ND and headed on. We kept on driving in the nothing and finally came on another cache (turns out I only loaded two for the state!). It was hidden in a bell near a church. We both had to use the restroom and considered asking to use the one there, but we decided to try the “gas” station. We weren’t really sure it was a gas station, but we stopped and there were bathrooms, we were relieved. We then rolled on west to Montana. Our first cache there was at an ATV, off-road vehicle park. We ran up the hill in the crazy wind and found the .50 cal ammo can. Not much swag, but I grabbed a jet. We found one other cache at a rest stop and then went on the Little Bighorn battlefield. Little Bighorn was really neat and we enjoyed all the history. We did a short trail and then the road trail, where we called a number to get details every stop. It was cool and there were tons of soldiers killed there. Heading back to Billings, we stopped at a museum and found a cache hidden in an old farm tractor. Chels grabbed some white shoe laces and we headed to Red Lodge. Once in Red lodge, we went to see if Beartooth pass was open. It was closed, so we went back to the hotel. The hotel is the Pollard and it’s an old school place. Really cool and old, but clean and nice. I called several places to eat and most were closed or closing, so we dashed across the road to a local bar and grabbed dinner. I had a buffalo burger and some porters. I tried the Red Lodge local porter and a Pigs Ass Porter. Gross.  

Day Four Tuesday 
Today was our Yellowstone day. We slept in again and ended up leaving around 930. Since Beartooth Pass was closed due to snow, we ended up going north and then south to get to the park. On the way into town, we stopped at a cache hidden at a cemetery. It was our first cache in a cemetery and pretty neat. The weather was quite nice, so we enjoyed getting out. We also decided, after talking to Andrew Miller (coworker from Montana), to visit Chico Hot Springs. It is naturally hot pools and pretty cool. We were a bit surprised to see it looked more like pools than anything. I was expecting something that looked more natural. There were a bunch of seniors from high school there and we got them to jump in our dancing video; they thought it was cool and asked us to take a picture with them for their yearbook. Awesome! We then headed to YSNP. The first place we visited in the park was the town of Mammoth Hot Springs. The town was literally that, a town. There were bison and caribou all over the place and tons of people. We went into the visitor center and looked around, but decided to just move into the park. Chels and I hit up the gift shops and I got a YSNP shot glass and then headed to the ice cream shop across the road. The flavors weren’t special, but they were good. I talked to a cute blonde at the counter (from Tennessee) and asked her opinion of the best place to see stuff. She advised the Grand Prismatic springs, which had lots of colors. We hit a few virtual and earth caches then moved on to see the sights. Really nothing too extraordinary, but it was cool to see the different kinds of bacteria and their colors. Many of the pools were boiling and some were mud pits that just popped and hissed. Cool stuff. We walked a few trails, many of which we had to ourselves. While heading through the park we hit a Bison-jam: a traffic jam caused by bison walking down the road. That lasted about 45 minutes or so and lots of traffic built up. It was kinda surreal. On the way to Old Faithful, we stopped and got a tent site reserved. I was upset they didn’t give me a discount for having a National Parks Pass, but I paid the $24 anyways. Finally, we headed to Old Faithful. We ended up walking the wrong way about a half mile before we figured out which way to go (after talking to a local employee). We were perturbed and it turned out we had just missed a show. So we sat for about 95 minutes until the next explosion. It was starting to get cold, so we headed to the camp site to build a fire. We set up the tent, built the fire and grilled some ham and cheese sandwiches. They were awesome. We cooked some marshmallows and called it a night. It didn’t take long to get super cold and I ended up sleeping with frozen toes most of the night.  

Day Five Wednesday 
Since we were freezing (34 degrees) and camping, we got up around 730 and started the fire. It didn’t do much, but we grilled more sandwiches and marshmallows, which were awesome. We then headed out of the park. It was bit sad we couldn’t spend more time, but we had seen enough. We stopped in West Yellowstone and changed into non-smokey clothes. We also grabbed a cache at the library and some gifts at a gift store. On to Idaho! We hit the Idaho line and did our dance and then went across the road to grab a cache in Montana. I walked across packed snow until I found a non-packed area. I fell in a foot or so, but didn’t get too wet. Grabbed the cache and moved on. Idaho is a lame state. The back roads weren’t very good and they had low speed limits. One highlight of the trip was stopping to get a cache at an Army depot store. The place was huge and I ran inside to check it out. Tons of stuff! The prices were a bit high though, so that was a bummer. However, the cache outside was pretty good according to Chelsea. She picked up a nightlight lava lamp thing. Finally, we made it to Utah. We did our dance (and got a nice honk from a trucker) and moved further south. We worked our way over to Golden Spike, grabbing a few caches on the way. Once we got to the spike, it was pretty lame. There were two big replica trains that were done down to the ¼” dimension. They also had some replica spikes (the real ones are at Stanford). Overall, I thought that the place was pretty lame. It was cool being way out in the nothingness though. We then headed into SLC. The traffic was busy, but moving. We finally made it through to Provo, the home of BYU around 6 or so. We had time to unpack and then go grab something to eat. It was okay, but nothing special. They had sweet potato fries that were pretty good, but nothing special.

  Day Six Thursday 
Got up on time this morning and left Provo, UT. We headed south towards Moab, to the Arches National Park. On the way there, we passed car after car had bikes or ATVs with them. It was like paradise. The closer we got, the more bikers we ran into. We stopped at the visitor center and, once again, there was a tour bus of Asian people. There were also busses at Yellowstone, so we were used to it. Once in the park, there were even more bikers; they were everywhere. The arches were cool, but it was hot (88 or so) so we didn’t hike much. We did some shorter trails, but nothing too much. The best hike was to the Delicate Arch, which is the one you see on license plates in Utah. We actually just hiked to a view of it; the trail to the arch was 3 miles long. We did our dance and moved on. I didn’t have any geocaches for it, so I had to call V and walk her through grabbing some for us. That was a pain, but we got it done. I got what I needed and hung up frustrated. Shortly after, my cell died. After leaving the park, we took a scenic route out of Moab. There were people camping on the side of the road the whole way and tons of bikers. I hope we can go back sometime and bike the area. It’s epic. We then headed to CO and stopped along the way at Colorado National Monument. It was cool, but after all we had seen, it was not too exciting. We ended the night at a Buffalo Wild Wings and since we were in Denver and the Nuggets were playing, it was packed. We waited a few minutes, but finally got a table. It was good and then we headed to Motel 6.  

Day Seven Friday 
We got up a little later and headed out of Denver. I got enough gas to make it to Kansas, where gas was cheaper. I actually got enough to go about 20 miles more than we needed…WRONG! About 20 miles out, the miles to empty dropped…and kept dropping. We pulled into the station on 0 miles to empty. I filled up over 12 gallons. The tank is only 12.4 gallons and we put in 12.18 gallons!! God was really looking out for us. We stopped at a camp ground and found a cache hidden under a sun dial. A worker nearby spotted us and we talked to him for a second, then we got on the road again. At this point, I was ready to get to Vanessa and rest for a bit. I really struggled until we turned south in Kansas. I got my second wind and headed on. We stopped at a cache in Oklahoma and then we were on the last stretch. We finally made it to Fayetteville around 10:30.