Post #20 part 2: The Great American Eclipse 08/21/17 + the Mother Daughter Road Trip

Day 4 - Tuesday, August 22nd
So the Bessey Recreation Complex was a nice facility. The bathrooms were clean, and the sky was so beautiful during the night. Mom and I chose to sleep in the car again because we wanted to leave early. Trying to take down a tent in the dark might have been difficult. Good thing we didn't because we ended up leaving at nearly 4 AM. We didn't intend to leave that early, but the campsite was next to the train track, and after midnight there were trains every hour, blowing their horns and waking us up. So we left Halsey and headed towards Mount Rushmore.

Left campsite and crossed into MDT.

Made it to Mt Rushmore

Funny thing, we left the campsite with a little over a half of tank of gas, well that was just enough to get to the next gas station. Mom and I made it to Alliance, Nebraska with 11 miles to spare {mileage: 5164 time: 06:00 CDT}. We were going through Alliance before the sun came up, so we didn't see Carhenge.


But we did get to Mount Rushmore {mileage: 5317 time: 07:45 MDT - 10:10 MDT} by 07:45 AM, which was great. TIP: If you are planning a trip to Mount Rushmore, GO EARLY!! We got there at 7:45 and there were no lines no waiting, but when we left around 10:10 there was a line from the gate all the way down to Keystone. Mom discovered, after we got there, that Mount Rushmore opens at 5 am. Had she known that beforehand we probably would have tried to get there earlier.

I'm serious, like the presidents

Mom with a picture of Lincoln, in front of Lincoln

Our time at Mount Rushmore helped us stretch our legs and get some cardio in. We had been in the car so much. I joked that we could jog the trail, mom took me seriously so that is what we did. We started jogging and stopped at each of the photo points.

Funny anecdote, at the very first stop there was a couple and the wife joked that she only runs when she is being chased, so we chatted a bit about the road trip and the eclipse. They were able to watch the eclipse in the middle of a field in Wyoming, but didn't get ay pictures of totality. Mom had, so I asked if they wanted me to share them. We did AirDrop, but what was funny is that the husband's information popped up on my phone, so I asked "Are you Kevin?" Well, I wasn't looking at his face, but mom said his reaction was amazing; shock and confusion. It was very entertaining.
We did two loops on the Presidential Trail, the first at a jog with stopping at photo ops and the maker's museum. We went into the little museum and the gift shop, and by the start of our second loop the main viewing area had started to fill up. Mom said that we would have to power walk the next loop. We did almost a full loop, making it to the top of the hill and back to the parking area, then we turned around and when back the other way. Going the other way meant we had to go UP all the stairs that people usually go down because they go clockwise from the entrance. It certainly got our blood pumping and sweat flowing. Good workout, aside from all the tourist getting in the way.



After Mount Rushmore we headed towards Wyoming. Mom tried to make me nix this part of the trip, but I was hell bent on getting to Wyoming. We crossed the border of South Dakota and Wyoming and stopped at their Welcome Center/Convenient Store/Post Office/Gas Station combo {mileage: 5403 time: 12:43 MDT}. We got some post cards and mailed them out - how convenient that they had a post office right there.




On our way back to South Dakota (we were getting to Campsite #3 by way of South Dakota), we stopped at their welcome center, which was a great idea because we discovered something interesting that was going to be along our route to Medora, ND: The Geographical Center of the United States, the real one that is out in the middle of a field, north of Belle Fourche, SD {mileage: 5457 time: 15:54 MDT}. That was a fun detour.
So from there we continued towards the Cottonwood Campground in North Dakota, following the directions from the AAA triptik. We were feeling good, we were actually going to get to a campsite early enough to walk some of the trails, although Mom wasn't looking forward to this campsite; no showers and only vault (non flush) toilets.
A right on to East River Road and we would be there. Well that right took us up a hill and no campsite was found. For no more than a half hour I though we were going the right way. We were driving through the beautiful Badlands. The strata you could see in the hills was cool toned, greys and reds. The prairie grass was a muted green and the road we are on was gravel. Our rental car was getting so dirty (bugs + dirt). There were beef cows grazing very near the road, within a cars' width of us. There were also a large number of oil pumps scattered alongside the road.
Mom and I were laughing most of the way, knowing we were lost and were not finding the campsite. But the sun was shinning and the views were unlike anything we had ever seen, all was well. It was as the sun was setting and daylight was fading did we really start to worry.

No zoom necessary

We had plenty of gas at least, but our cell phones had no service. Mom suggested that we turn around. I thought we had come too far to turn around, we had to be getting somewhere, I suppose the real question was: Where? I made the mental decision that at a quarter of a tank of gas we could turn around, that way we definitely had enough gas to get back. But once we had enough of being lost I had my mom watch Google maps on my phone as I drove and tell me when we had service. I would stop and analyze Google maps to determine where we needed to go.
Disclaimer: Mom and I know how to read a map, if we had a map of this area we would have been fine.

The view on the left side of our dirt road

The view on the right side of our dirt road

Once we finally got out of the Badlands, and back on to paved roads we found a hotel, we ended up an extra hour or so north in Watford City, North Dakota. So we were supposed to end up at Campsite #3: Cottonwood Campground in Medora, North Dakota, but we failed and then ended up at Hotel #2 Little Missouri Inn & Suites, Watford City {mileage: 5734}. Once getting into the hotel and onto the wifi I checked... if we had turned left on East River Road we would have made it to the campsite. Also, the campsite was off interstate 94. Sigh.

Screen shot of the map when we had service

Screen shot of the directions when we had service