Actual Route (click to enlarge)

Orange marks are overnight spots. 

Black marks are national parks/monuments. 

Day 10 Great Smoky Mountains to Durham

I almost finished, but then the post was wiped out..so here goes.

Location: Hilton garden inn, Durham, North Carolina
Distance: 350 miles
Total hours driven: 6 hours
States crossed: North Carolina
Time left Cades Cove: 130 pm
Time arrived Durham: 9 pm

After a loud night of camping, thanks to the crickets we went to find out what makes Great smoky mountains the most visited park in the nation. The mountains were nice, and people stopped to see dear. I guess they've never had dear eat your flowers.

Deer

Unfortunately the road to the top of the mountains was closed, so we headed to Durham. At Durham we ate at a sushi restaurant with all sorts of Asian food. Tomorrow we would move in my sister to college. It was a great trip.

Durham!!!

Day 9 Paducah, KY to Great Smoky Mountains, Cades Cove, TN

Location: Cades Cove campground
Distance: 355 miles
Total Hours driven: 6.5 hours
States crossed: Kentucky, Tennessee
Time left Paducah: 1 pm
Time arrived Cades Cove: 930 pm local time
Time zones crossed: central time to eastern time, + 1 hour

Subsequent to a quick three hours to Nashville, we ate at Sbarros, a pizza, pasta place in downtown. Nashville's downtown is all brick and very historic like St Louis.

Nashville

Tonight would be our last night on the road, and it would be spent camping. Although we originally planned to cook, time caught up with us and we instead stopped to eat. I ate at a Sonic burger place. The drive in had really good burgers. Plenty of bear signs warned us upon our arrival at the campground. No food was allowed outside of cars unless it was being eaten. The crickets chirped loudly all night, and my ears can still hear the loud symphony of noise. Wow.

Full moon at campsite

Also it was actually kind of hot at night, around 70 degrees! A huge contrast to the 30 degree weather at yellowstone and grand Teton in Wyoming. Luckily that night there were no bears.

Day 8 Kansas City to Paducah, KY

Location: Hampton Inn Paducah
Distance: 420 miles
Total hours driven: 7 hours
States crossed: Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky
Time left Kansas City: 1 pm
Time arrived Paducah: 11 pm

While I slept in, my sister and mom visited the museum one more time. When leaving Kansas City, we passed by an abandoned gas station and instead went to one next to a mcdonalds. The new smoothies mcdonalds have are pretty good actually. After 4 hours of driving, we reached St Louis where we stopped at the Gateway Arch.

It's a pretty neat engineering feat, and slightly higher than the space needle, but well, in an arch. For dinner we ate at Old Spaghetti Factory in the cobblestone area of St Louis. In St Louis there are also horse carriage rides, for a cost, but we didn't go on it. My sister drove the next 3 hours to Paducah, KY.

Day 7 Sioux Falls, South Dakota to Kansas City, Missouri

Location: Holiday Inn Express Kansas City
Distance travelled: 370 miles
Total hours driven: 6 hours
States touched: South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri
Time left Sioux Falls: 11 am
Time arrived Kansas City: 7 pm

Today was mostly a driving day. For lunch we stopped at a Thai restaurant in Omaha, Nebraska. We encountered our first traffic jam there.

Omaha, NE

Traffic in Omaha

Thunderstorm!

Kansas City

Through very heavy rain and lightning, we reached Kansas City and went to the nelson-atkins art museum for my sister. It is huge, and my sister will go back tomorrow. 3 more days!

Its a painting

Day 6 Rapid City, South Dakota to Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Location: Residence Inn, Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Distance travelled: 400 miles
Total hours driven: 7 hours
States crossed: South Dakota
Time left Rapid City: 12 pm
Time arrived Sioux Falls: 2 am local time
Time zone crossed: Mountain time to Central time, + 1 more hour

Getting to a lateish start as usual, we backtracked a little bit to Crazy Horse Memorial, the native american Mt Rushmore. Although not complete yet, when completed it will be the worlds largest monument. Right now all that's visible is the head.

Crazy Horse itself isn't too impressive, but the museum displaying native art and artifacts makes it more worth it. My sister liked Crazy Horse better than Mt Rushmore because of its culture. After driving for another hour and a half, we reached Badlands National Park, a park of rock formations. The pictures describe it better.

 While watching a nice sunset, we started driving the 4 more hours to Sioux Falls.

Day 5 Gillette, Wyoming to Rapid City, South Dakota

Location: Grand Suites, Rapid City, South Dakota
Distance travelled: 196 miles
Total hours driven: 3.5 hours
States crossed: Wyoming, South Dakota
Time left Gillette: 1215 pm
Time arrived Rapid City: 530 pm

Today we hit two national monuments, Devils Tower and Mt Rushmore. The drive from our hotel to Devils Tower only took an hour, with a stop at a Subway for lunch. With the temperature at around 95 degrees, we walked around the base of the tower on the trail.

Devils Tower from afar

Sign photo

Can you spot the climber?

The trail took about an hour and a half and was nice and paved. On the way out of the park, we stopped by a prairie dog town. The prairie dogs are rodents and named for their dog-like high pitched noises.

Prairie dog looks up at Devils Tower

It was a short drive to Rapid City where our hotel was. Mom wanted to eat in the room, so we cooked pasta and salad in our room. At around 9pm, we left for Mt Rushmore. The park was fairly empty, due to the time, but the lights were shining on the mountain face.

Mt Rushmore with all of the state flags in the foreground

TV

It was impressive, and tomorrow we will see the Native American version of Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse. Today's the midpoint of the trip and tomorrow includes Crazy Horse and Badlands National Park.