As promised, the trend of writing about the trip continues.
I have learned many new and exciting things. I have a better perspective of the United States and I am glad to have experienced life outside of South Dakota.
I have taken other trips before, but none like this. None where we lived out of the car and pitched a tent and had a pretty limited budget, and found ourselves in the middle of nowhere at times. This was a new experience that was unlike any other.
I learned something in every state, some more exciting than others.
Wyoming is pretty much a more scenic version of South Dakota until you hit Yellowstone. There is a lot of nothing. Yellowstone is like a beautiful world of its own. Here, we learned that everything can always be worse. Although the wind ripped apart our tent and we had nowhere to stay for the night, we dodged a huge rain storm by about 10 minutes.
Montana is pretty much a more scenic version of Wyoming. There is nothing too exciting about it. The people we met were friendly enough. Montana has about 30 different license plates that people can apply for. We were looking at plates and thinking that people were from different places, but we were mistaken. Montana has different speed limits for cars and trucks as well as different speed limits for day and night. Good idea, props to them for that.
Idaho is the land of six trillion trees. We were only in the panhandle so I can not speak for all of Idaho. The area we were in was beautiful and the roads were pretty curvy.
Washington has a lot of variety. There are big cities, large forests, the ocean and about everything in between. The combination is terrific. They also have little slugs, and their state highway numbers are in a picture of George Washington's head. Rad.
Oregon is very similar to Washington but slightly warmer. Both states were pretty chilly by the coast. It is illegal to pump your own gas in Oregon (yes, illegal).
California is much more expensive than anywhere else. They have different gas pumps than other places which really confused me at first. The pumps have a cover over the metal tube that goes into the car and the spot to lock the pump is in the back and not underneath. That is the best I can explain it. California’s weather is crazy. The temperature difference from the coast to the bay to inland is significant. Everywhere is bright brown because of the drought that they are enduring. Inland is very dry and dusty because of the lack of rain. Gas is about a dollar more than it is in South Dakota. Slugs live here too.
Nevada is hot hot hot. There is a lot of empty space between places. We just passed through Nevada and did not stay, so I did not learn much else. I did see a Trump tower in Vegas though, and that made me want to vomit.
Arizona looks a lot like Nevada, except the rocks are more red. Again, we only passed through.
Utah has a lot of temples. The dirt is red like in Arizona and it is also very hot. We had to take care of some car maintenance in Utah, and everyone we spoke to was very knowledgeable and helpful.
Colorado is beautiful and rocky on the western side. It is a lot like South Dakota to the east of Denver, so that is not any fun.
Everywhere we went people were friendly. Apparently the midwest has a reputation for being friendly, but people out west were nicer than most people I encounter day to day in South Dakota. It is important to remember that there is a whole world outside of the bubble that you live in, and that everywhere is so different, and yet the same.
We also experienced using our best judgement on when to wait out a storm and when to shove the entire tent into the backseat.
I wish it was not over yet, but it was a great time with lots of memories and lessons learned.
