The drive home
October 30th, 2005I hung around Portland for about a week, which was enough to fall in love with the city all over again. I knew I had to set some sort of deadline to get home, otherwise I never would have left. So, I decided to head back to see the craziness that is Madison, Wisconsin on the Saturday before Halloween. I then found out that a band I know from Minneapolis would be playing in Rochester, Minnesota (only an hour short of home) on Friday night, so it worked perfectly.
I left Wednesday morning, giving me three good days of driving, about 600 miles and 10 hours each day. It just so happens that Missoula, MT was around 600 miles from Portland, and I had to stop and see a friend there anyway.
In Deer Lodge, Montana (about 90 miles out of Missoula), on my second day of driving, the Little Escort that Could hit a milestone that many probably doubted would happen a year and a half ago.
That’s right, 150,000 miles. The scenery in Deer Lodge provided a nice backdrop for some portraits of the fabled green machine. It had been raining all day, but the clouds literally cleared for only 20 minutes or so, before the next storm front blew in.
Then, it was about another 600 miles to Deadwood, South Dakota, where I was hoping to continue the good fortune I had last time, on my way out to Montana this summer. Unfortunately, the cards were not in my favor this time, so I opted for the highly economical Hotel l’Escort instead of a conventional room.
That choice paid off the next morning, as I woke up and stepped out of the car to watch this amazing sunrise.
The third day of driving, across the boringest of boring terrains in the world (the Great Plains) was done with little fanfare (other than that sunrise of course). I did, however, finally stop at Wall Drug, the famously horrendous tourist trap in South Dakota, which I had passed by a number of times on various road trips. Since I had breakfast at Wall Drug, I figured it was only appropriate that I eat lunch at South Dakota’s famously horrendouser tourist trap, the Corn Palace in Mitchell. They are every bit as worthless as you might imagine, but you gotta see them at least once.
I made it to Rochester just fine, and I had a great time seeing old friends at the concert, in particular a good friend who has been traveling South America for the past couple years. I thought she had gone off to Thailand, but it turned out she wasn’t leaving for a couple weeks. It also turned out that her car was in Madison and she needed a ride back there the following day. So I did, indeed, make it to the Halloween festivities in Madison, but I didn’t take any pictures or stick around for the teargas. It was fun nonetheless.