A Scenic Drive to Cody, Wyoming

We got a good night's sleep last night at the Landmark Country Inn in Murdo. Jackson loved his cushy, comfy bed, that he got to sleep in all by himself.

Seriously, doesn't he look comfy?

And just a couple more pictures of this hotel:

Right outside our room.

The hotel lobby.

Once we left Murdo, we headed down the road (gained another hour) and made our way to Wall Drug. We found this little tourist trap on our way out to the East Coast. There is literally nothing for miles and miles and miles in South Dakota, but then all of a sudden you start seeing these billboards for Wall Drug. And they last for literally, like 200 miles. When you finally get to the exit for Wall Drug, you cannot help but stop, because you've seen so many signs for it. It's brilliant marketing! Let me show you a few of the signs we saw:

For miles and miles. It's hilarious. The rest of the trip looked like this:

Fields and mountains.

More fields and more mountains.

So, when we got to the turnout for Wall Drug, we of course stopped again.

A huge dinosaur welcomes you.

The town is like a little western town.

The 'main drag'.

Joe and I took turns going into the store and looking around, and staying out with the dogs. It was already starting to be a hot day.

A random display inside the store.

A huge jackalope you could ride.

We bought some snacks and some special chocolate (tequila lime and spicy huckleberry flavors) and that's about it. It was just fun to go inside and look around. It's such a tourist trap, but totally worth the time.

Then we got back on the road.

Miles and miles, just like this. Isn't South Dakota beautiful?

We passed into Wyoming and took the scenic route to Cody, where we planned to stay the night. Most of the trip was slow, but beautiful. But we did hit some construction.

We off-roaded it in the Toyota.

Ava was jolted awake by the bumpy roads. (Yes, at this point she had dug her way underneath Jack's bed to sleep.)

After several more hours on the road, we made it to our destination of Cody. We got a cute little hotel downtown, and we settled right in for the night.

Joe was tired after all the driving.

Ava was tired after all the.... sleeping.

I got right on the computer to start blogging. (You are welcome.)

Joe went out to get dinner (Subway) and wine (which we drank out of the plastic glasses the hotel had available.) Classy, I know.

Cheers!

Tomorrow we are heading into Yellowstone! We are looking forward to the drive through the park. We are hoping to see more wildlife than we saw last time we went through. Should be a leisurely day tomorrow.

Hours and Hours of Driving to End up in... Murdo, SD

We left our horrible hotel in Madison, Wisconsin as soon as we could this morning. It was not a good night. And we decided to try to drive as much as possible today to eat up some miles. Minnesota and South Dakota are great states, but they are full of farmland and miles and miles of nothingness. We stopped to get gas every time we saw a station because we literally didn't know when we would see another one!

By the way, the one cool thing about our last hotel was that Jackson got his own bed! He loved it and slept on it all night:

Anyway, we left Wisconsin around 8:30 a.m. and got out of the state pretty quick. We got into Minnesota and the sun came out and it turned out to be a great day. But Minnesota actually went by quick, because we never saw a sign, but all of a sudden we were in South Dakota!

Teepee sculpture at a rest stop.

Then, after about 10 hours on the road (Joe drove the whole way - I swear, I offered a lot!), we started looking for a hotel to stay at. As I mentioned, there really isn't much out here, so it was really hard to find a town big enough to even have a hotel, and then hard to find a good one (we didn't want to stay in another bad one, that's for sure!). We saw that there was a Days Inn and a Super 8 in a little town called Murdo, so we pulled in. We pulled up to the Super 8 and right when I was going to go in and reserve a room, my mom called. I had her quickly look up reviews for me, and thank goodness I did - it had terrible reviews!

So, I called the Days Inn and unfortunately, their pet policy is that pets must stay crated at all times, even if you are in the room with them! Not good for us, but when I told them that, they were nice enough to tell us about another hotel across the highway that was comparable in price and had a less strict pet policy. It was called the Landmark Country Inn. I had my mom look up reviews for that one, and they sounded good, so we headed over and checked in.

This place is so surreal. The guy who owns it (or maybe he's the manager, I don't know) stepped right out of the 70's, complete with terrible toupee and cut-off t-shirt. He took careful time with me explaining the room and amenities before checking us in.

We got to the room and couldn't stop laughing. Check out the decor in this room!

Silk bedspreads, tapestries on the walls...

Weird parlor-looking section with magazines and writing desk. Note the area rug and plastic ficus in the corner.

Again, with the tapestries and collection of plates on display.

It seems to be a really clean room, and a nice place. It's actually really awesome. Hilarious, but awesome. There is a cute little sitting area right outside our glass double doors, and our neighbors have been super friendly as they sit in their little sitting area.

I didn't get any sleep at all last night, so I think it's about bed time. Hopefully a good night's sleep is in my future. Please don't let anything ruin this place between now and tomorrow morning!