Day 38 - Arrived Home
End of Adventure
This was the last long day of the adventure.... a drive of 886 miles from Billings to Rochester. After an early start, I decided to just drive through when I calculated that I could be home by midnight and it was mostly Interstate driving. Montana was a beautiful state, from Missoula to the South Dakota border... not like I had remembered it. But it also had the characteristics of travel in northern Canada and Alaska, as road work was underway and the road was rough in places. I decided to take the short cut from Billings to Spearfish on route 212 across the Indian reservations. With a half tank of gas, I started the drive passing Custer's battle monument and park. First discovery as the miles clicked by was that the small Indian towns were out of gas, so it was a stretch to get to the first station. Then as road conditions varied along the highway, I arrived at about 15 miles of gravel that was under construction.. so like in the Yukon, it was slow going, and in one spot trailing a water truck that was hosing down the road to keep the dust down.. Then a passing truck threw up a rock and got the corner of my windshield causing a 5 inch crack to soon appear.. the second time on the trip.. so the Yukon roads and Montana got to me... two windshields credited to this trip.
It was good to get gassed up and back on I-90 again at Spearfish. I kept on going until I arrived at Wall Drug.. the traditional stop for travelers heading West. Parking in a crowded lot of RVs, I walked through the "complex" of buildings and stores that have formed to be part of the "Drug Store". Many changes since I had visited some years ago. I got a sandwich and some ice cream and hit the road again for Minnesota. The sky was dark in the south and I heard on the radio that a tornado had touched down just across the Nebraska border. Soon I arrived at the Minnesota border and was in the home stretch... as the miles clicked by, and it became dusk, I noticed movement in the median and just missed hitting two deer that decided to run in front of my car.. brakes and horn did not deter them, but I saw them in time to avoid hitting them.. my welcome wagon back to Minnesota. The rest of the trip was uneventful and I seemed wide awake.. back in the land of an infinite number of radio stations, with volume and bass turned up, I had no trouble making it into Rochester.
Unloading the car and trailer it seemed a long way from Alaska.. and strange to be standing back here again... reverse culture shock after living in the trailer for over 5 weeks. The first camping trip was a success and there were many lessons learned that I hope to summarize on this web site later this week... what worked for me and what was unneeded. Time to start planning the next one.....
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