Beginning the Trip June 23-24

 June 23, 2022, Thursday 

This is the beginning of a trip that will span and include: two hemispheres; the Atlantic Ocean; two continents; five countries; six airplane flights, five car rentals; eight residential rentals; and three inter-city train trips. 

After movie night at the condo the prior evening we actually got started almost on time, Left the house about 8:15. The car was partially gassed and had a full battery, the latter of which was used up quickly as we climbed up I-80 past Park City. With respect to the former I hoped to purchase lower priced gasoline in Wyoming (Recall this was the time of $5 per gallon gasoline.) The drive to the Utah Wyoming border was uneventful, but into Wyoming we began to encounter frequent highway repairs/construction which resulted in lane closures, one lane driving and much slower than normal highway speeds. Typically, this would not be a major concern, except that as the HOA Board President I was supposed to chair the monthly general membership meeting.  I had planned to arrive early enough to do that from the Rapid City SD hotel which promised good internet, but I had to get there on time.

As the lane closures continued, I toyed with the idea of leaving I-80 prematurely and taking secondary roads, but I did not see a good time saving alternative. We exited I-80 about 100 miles east of Evanston as the gas gauge was dropping too close to empty in Mountain View to get gas. Alas it was a very small town with high gas prices, but at least the station had good bathrooms and friendly service. It was also a long way between exiting and returning to the freeway.

250 miles later we arrived in Casper WY and stopped at a Smiths gas station where we refueled while using up a large number of grocery "gasoline points" that reduced the price. We also picked up some prepared sandwiches for lunch at the grocery store which we ate while stopping at a local park.

As we drove through rural Wyoming, I noticed lots of billboards and signs for Harriet Hageman, Liz Chaney's opponent in the upcoming Republican congressional primary. Probably does not bode well for Chaney, although we did see signs for Chaney in Casper.

After Casper there was a lot of driving through rural Wyoming, but we arrived in Rapid City in time for me to make the call into the Board meeting. 9.5 hours of driving.

As we entered Rapid City it was in the midst of a festival. It is the second largest city in South Dekota. The city got its start as a result of the discovery of gold in the Black Hills by George Custer in (before Little Big Horn) 1874. It became known as the Gateway to the Black Hills, but when tourism declined following the onset of the Depression, the city invited Al Capone to live there with sanctuary. He declined. It got a further boost in tourism after WWII following the completion of Mount Rushmore. In 1980 the US Supreme Court ruled that the US had stolen the Black Hills including the land upon which Rapid City sits from the Sioux Indians in violation of a treaty. The US offered money to settle, but the Sioux refused the offered. To date the dispute remains unresolved and the settlement offer continues to accrue interest.

Our Wyndham hotel was just outside downtown on the side of a hill. As promised it had good internet and I had a successful HOA Zoom call. I was able to plug into an external electrical outlet on the rear of the hotel after we had dinner at a local restaurant.

July 24, 2022, Friday arrival in Minneapolis 

Following a pretty good breakfast in the hotel, (Too many hotels now have cancelled their breakfast of drastically reduced the offerings' allegedly due to Covid, but I suspect it is just a vehicle to reduce costs.) we got on the road with 37 electric miles a few minutes after 9. It was a long, boring, slog across South Dakota on I-90 and even when we passed into Minnestoa we still did not get to my son's house in Minneapolis until 6:59 pm (We lost an hour crossing the time zone.) All three grandsons were up so there was a lot of noise, jumping on us and general chaos when we arrived.