Home Sweet Home

Saturday 7/22/17  TOOTS is an amazing invention!  The prior night I keyed in "home" to see what I had ahead of me and she indicated 14.5 hours.  I was home, in the door at almost EXACTLY that . . . which is saying something since I had to stop along the way for biological breaks and gas.  Of course, 90 is the new 80 when you are on a cross country road trip on I80 through the plains states.  At one point I had made up so much time that it looked like I might make it in under 14 hours.  But alas, when I got to the MN/WI border, I opted for a side detour to check on one of our member centers that had closed earlier this spring.  Unfortunately it was still closed while up for sale.

The check out of the motel didn't go so smoothly as I didn't get a receipt the night before and the office didn't open until 7am.  ARGH!  I waited around for close to 30 minutes in order to get my receipt.

My drive home was uneventful, actually surprising as I wasn't really sure where the routing was going to bring me up to I80 in South Dakota.  I connected in just beyond Rapid City to the east.  Since I had breakfast so early, and was sorta tired of my cooler food for lunch, I opted for a McDonald's Egg McMuffin for "brunch" before leaving civilization for a few hours.  It was a nice break from Rice Krispees and turkey sandwiches.

Since I was in "getting home" mode I didn't stop at any of the usual places.  I contemplated a side detour back through Badlands National Park, but knew in doing so, I'd be delaying my arrival enough to actually risk not getting home that night.  So I plowed on . . . not stopping for anything except the essentials.  Even dinner became expendable as I contemplated stopping at one of our member centers when I crossed the Mississippi River into La Crosse.  Sorry Pla Mor Lanes!

I arrived home at 10:15pm with over 1,000 miles covered in the 14.25 hours.  Not too shabby at all as that works out to 71.3 MPH with stops!

Final totals . . . today 1,016 miles and grand total of 4,048 (+/- due to rounding).  Total gas used was 166 gallons for 23.4 MPG . . . which is pretty good.

And I close with this, one of the most glorious sunrises I saw while in Yellowstone National Park!