Alex Bovee

We got on the road at 1:30PM, which was later than desired, but not terrible.  The idea was to haul ourselves as fast as possible across the corn fields of the mid-west so we could enjoy a little more time out west in areas like Yellowstone and Yosemite.  Given that we were already on the south-western side of Chicago (in Countryside, IL to be exact), we decided to head south on I-55 to I-80 heading towards Davenport, IA.  When we reached Iowa City, we headed north on 380 so we could get to I-90 west on the southern edge of Minnesota.  For the most part, the drive was completely unexceptional until that point.  The countryside of Iowa and Illinois is mostly flat land with cornfields, soy beans, and the occasional wind mill.

Once we arrived in Minnesota and started heading west on I-80, things got much more interesting.  It was right around 8:00 PM, when we hit the wildest, most surreal thunder storm I’ve ever witnessed.  Lightning was crackling all around us and the view was amazing.  Strangely, for the first 30 minutes of the storm, the lightning was only in the clouds and there was little to no precipitation.  After a few miles though, the lightning began striking ground in the distance and it was pouring.  Being from South Carolina, I’ve experienced my fair share of intense tropical storms, but this was one really for the record books.  Usually in situations when I’m driving in the rain, I’ll look at the right side of the road for the white line and follow that to make sure I’m not heading for a ditch.  There were a few select times when I couldn’t even see that line.  Several times I might as well have been driving with my eyes closed for the visibility would have been comparable.

After about an hour of terrible weather, we decided it would be prudent to find a place to stay.  So, we started calling ahead to hotels on the road to find something.  To our surprise, nearly every single hotel was completely booked.  Here I was thinking that rough economic times might actually convince people to not travel, yet not a single hotel we called had a room available.  After literally about 30 phone calls and an hour and half on the road, we struck travel gold with a Best Western in the town of Calistota, SD.  The town itself was more than a stone’s throw off the highway, but we really didn’t care at that point because we were just so happy to be sleeping somewhere other than the car.