Rain is the worst thing we could encounter on a trip to see baseball, but fortunately, our next game isn’t until the 14th in Seattle — in a stadium with a retractable roof. Unfortunately, it still looks like we are in for non-stop rain over the next week.
Our plan is to see the Yellowstone, Grand Teton and Glacier National Parks over the next four days, but we might be limited. We got up bright and early this morning at 6:30 and are planning to head out in a few minutes to see Mount Rushmore. The forecast gets gloomier as the day goes on, so we’re hoping that if we get there early, we can get a look at it.
We’re sticking to our plan to see Yellowstone tomorrow and have booked a hotel a mile north of the main entrance. We’ll have to see tonight and decide, but last night’s forecast for Friday called for a mix of rain and snow, with a high of 39 and a low of 25, so we might have to change plans.
Looks like John and Justin will split today’s driving, just about 475 miles — not sure how rainy it’ll be as we drive across Wyoming. I took care of the 350 miles or so of driving across South Dakota yesterday, from Sioux Falls to Rapid City; we only hit a little bit of rain as we neared the end, but saw hail that we had just missed on the ground when we reached Rapid City.
We didn’t make many stops yesterday, just drove across the countryside. There are a ton of billboards on the side of I-90 advertising tourist spots — like “1880s Town,” the “Reptile Gardens,” and the “Corn Palace” — but we kept moving so that we could get into a hotel in time to see Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals, and get some sleep for today.
We did detour into Badlands National Park though, for about an hour. It’s quite a sight, which I don’t quite know how to describe, so I’ll defer to Wikipedia’s description: “sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles and spires blended with the largest protected mixed grass prairie in the United States.”
The name comes from when travelers would hit these mountain-like canyons, that went on for miles and miles — which they described as being “bad lands” to cross, after traveling across the country’s Great Plains.
Time to hit the road.
Posted by Phil 
The Phallic Road Trip 