"Who lives sees, but who travels sees more."
This past summer, I was itching to travel as I so often feel when I'm stuck in one place for a long period of time. I spent the majority of the summer working and studying for my PCAT exam and was honestly looking for something that would add some excitement to life's daily mundane activities. In the midst of all this, my good friend Alex was preparing to make a cross country move to Baltimore via a road trip. In a conversation I had with him, I sort of brought up half-jokingly that I should go along with him so he wouldn't have to make the journey alone. That all of a sudden turned into some quick decision making over destinations, recruiting my friend Aly to come along with us, taking my exam, and squeezing ourselves into a stuff car until we finally found ourselves cruising along I-90 which would take us through 13 states in 6 days. It was such a crazy, spur of the moment trip, but something I'm glad I did knowing I will probably never have the chance to do something like this again.
DAY 1
Seattle, WA > Spokane, WA > Idaho > Missoula, MT
We spent the majority of the day and night driving through Washington. Got a speeding ticket before we even left the state. Fail. We finally stopped in Spokane for dinner. The first thing we saw when we arrived was a sign on a building that said, "We love raping boys." Good to know, Spokane, good to know. We got a bit behind schedule and didn't make it to Missoula until really late at night. It was kind of freaky driving through deserted towns where nobody was out and the streets were barely lit. It definitely felt like a scary movie.
DAY 2
Missoula, MT > Billings, MT > Devil's Tower, WY > Keystone, SD > Rapid City, SD
I never really knew how big Montana is until you have drive through it. After a rather monotonous morning of seeing only open fields and occasional mountains, we eventually made it to Devil's Tower late in the afternoon. We had to take a long and windy off road to get there, but when we all saw it come into view it's the kind of thing that stops you in your track. We weren't able to drive up super close, but from where we were I already felt miniscule compared to it's geological greatness. Afterwards we rushed to Mount Rushmore to try catch it before dusk, but we missed it. However, we did make it in time for the lighting ceremony, which really wasn't as great as you'd think.
DAY 3
Keystone, SD > Sioux Falls, SD > Minneapolis, MN
We went back to Mount Rushmore in the morning to see the sculptures in the light. It is definitely a lot more glorious during the day. We then drove to Sioux Falls which ended up being a bit disappointing. It was really polluted with trash and the water was brown and smelly. We made it to Minneapolis late at night. I was surprised to see that Minneapolis has a pretty decent size Asian population. However, this observation comes from eating at a Chinese restaurant and walking around the university. I also kind of got the impression that Minneapolis is sort of the like the Seattle of the Midwest. Very cool city.
