“On the road again, I just can’t wait to get on…”

Since I last posted about the Faith tornado, we have been doing a lot of traveling and touristy things.    After spending the night in Hill City, we went to Custard State Park in the Badlands of South Dakota and were able to drive up some pretty steep, winding terrain…with no guard rails, might I add.  It really is beautiful country here.   We then drove through some wildlife place and were able to see numerous pronghorns, buffalo, and a mountain goat.  We then stopped by the adjacent Mt. Rushmore.  Very impressive!  After that excursion we went to the town of Wall, SD.  Coming in at 76,000 square feet, Wall Drug is the largest drug store in America…or something like.  We spent an hour looking around!  I have even eaten a buffalo burger while in South Dakota.  It was pretty tasty!  Oh, we also drove through Sturgis one time! 

Overall, I have a love/hate kind of thing going on with South Dakota.  I hate it because cell phone service there (at least on AT&T’s part) is terrible.  But it is very scenic.  Pros and cons…as with most places. 

Yesterday we left South Dakota, went through Nebraska, Colorado, and then ended in Goodland, Kansas.  I think it’s funny how I can spend multiple hours in a car now and not really be affected by it.  All ten of us still get along well.  We play games, talk, joke, etc.  The time really passes by quickly.  Our intentions that day were to just drive to Kansas, but we did detour a bit to check out a storm that was producing some hail.  And that night I took a break from everything–watched some basketball and then made it to the hot tub!

Today we trekked form Kansas to Amarillo…watching Shawshank Redemption along the way!  That is my all-time favorite movie.  If you want to win me over, you should buy it for me.  That and Air Force One.  It’s a top 5.  We watched another movie, but it doesn’t need to be mentioned because it will take away from Shawshank

And tonight we had a guy on the trip, David, eat The Big Texan…a 72 ounce steak, salad, shrimp, potato, and a roll.  Okay, so he attempted to eat it.  If you finish in an hour the meal is free.  He got pretty close, but the time limit was too stringent for him.  He said he could’ve finished if he would’ve had more time…and I believe him.  It was actually streaming live at bigtexan.com for all to see!  I let many friends and family know about it!

We got back to the hotel and all gathered and watched a video Dr. Brown put together of the trip.  It was nice to see all of the things we have done and seen over the past couple of weeks.  I have learned so much and become even better friends with all of these people.  I really don’t want it to end.  I have found a new fascination with severe weather!  

Tomorrow the plan is to drive to Oklahoma City.  I am not really sure what we will do when there.  Renny and Mike are meeting up with other students (in a distance learning program) with another round of storm chasing.  And we eight students from State will be going home Saturday. 

I plan to post a video of the trip and write one more post.  And next week, I should be getting back to providing North Mississippi with forecasts!