The hills of Wyoming

We left the beautiful badlands early yesterday morning and headed to Wyoming! The roads were flat and there was nothing for miles. Thanks to the dirt roads in South Dakota's badlands, Vandy needed a good washing. I give her a good scrub at every gas station just to keep her satisfied.

We decided to see this national monument called Devils Tower, which is this mountain that goes straight vertically into the air and is flat on top. A very questionable structure on how the land around it is quite flat.

On the way to this monument we stopped at a gas station so Kember could buy some tea and get me some erectile dysfunction (only two of my friends will get that joke). But I must admit  as I told my sister I was going to put this in the blog, I giggled to myself for 10 minutes while driving though the miles of nothingness of Wyoming. I'd say a highlight to the day...

Anyway back to the story, so while I was parked out front of this gas station another Volkswagen Westfalia pulls up next to us. I reach over to roll down the window and talk to the man who got out. I learned he is traveling with his wife and their good boy golden retriever Blue. They live in California but are heading east to see family, the exact opposite route we are taking. I got out of the car when they came back out of the gas station and we talked all about our trip so far: how long we are going for, where we have been or where we are going, we even opened up the van doors and shared with each other what the insides looked like. She (I didn't get their names so you guys are stuck with he or she, but of course got the dogs name because that's the most important...) so she liked our spice rack, which is just these metal tins that have magnets on the back and we can stick them all over the van. Anyway I doubt you guys really care about our conversations with fellow van lifers. So after that we were off to discover more of Wyoming.

At about 309 miles into driving my right knee started to hurt so I do what anyone would do in this situation... I drove a solid 48 miles with my left foot. I do this quite often I must admit, it's my first time doing it so far on this trip but all my long treks to Maryland I always find myself driving with my left foot here and there, but for never this long. I kinda got into a challenge with myself, how long I could do it without my sister noticing. I even put my right foot up on the center console but no comment. When we stopped for gas I confessed what I had done and my sister just laughed it off.

Anyway as we continued through Wyoming there was just grass and cows the whole way long, if we got luck we could see sheep, horses or even a person every 30 miles. Truly an exciting time!! Although out of nowhere I found myself going 20 miles an hour up a huge mountain. Vandy doesn't like hills too much so she keeps a steady pace of 20-30 miles up one. But this was no ordinary hill... we were climbing a mountain. At the top of it we found ourselves driving through clouds and snow all over the ground. At that moment, I knew we were in for a cold cold night.

At the peak of the mountain we saw a sign showing those trucks that are going downhill and directly under it we saw 13 miles. So we knew the next 13 miles were full of praying Vandy's breaks would hold up... Every few sharp turns and steep downhills we saw these truck runways that where there incase an 18-wheeler or car was going too fast down the hill and wouldn't make the turn. Not a fun sight to see when it's 7:30 at night and the sun has already set.

We finally made it to our campsite 460 miles later and we were the only ones there! I thought we would be lucky enough to actually have some human interaction but I was wrong. Oh so very wrong… So we found ourselves making a grilled cheese and avocado dinner, reading and writing then heading off to bed.

I apologize for not posting yesterday, I know how 100% of all of you readers were just so heart broken that you couldn’t get your daily dose of a 17 year old driving around the states and her mediocre writing skills. I hope this lovely post can make it up to all you lovely folks out there:) Have a wonderful day!! I know I will!