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The Moments in Between

Snapshots along the way as we explored Wyoming & South Dakota

By Scott Richardson

November 28^th, 2020

Westbound

We left after work on a Wednesday afternoon. We weren’t supposed to leave until Saturday, but there was no way we were getting on an airplane in the middle of a global pandemic. So, six hours of flying from Philadelphia to Jackson Hole turned into 31 hours of driving.

The first night we logged nearly 400 miles and stopped near Cleveland. On Thursday we cruised through the rest of Ohio and watched the skies grow stormy over Indiana and Illinois. The day’s only notable stop? A 1900’s soda fountain in Moline, Illinois for a mid-afternoon ice cream sundae. We made it to Des Moines in the early evening after 710 miles of driving.

On Friday, we made a few stops near Omaha before finally leaving the interstate. We wound our way through the sandhills along NE Route 2. After a quick stop at Carhenge, we ended our 600-mile day in Bridgeport, NE.

We continued our trek west on Saturday with an early morning stop at Chimney Rock. We cruised through the desert, stopping to see the confusing landscape of Hell’s Half Acre, and the beautiful walls of Wind River Canyon. Then we made the final push to our destination: Grand Teton National Park. We climbed through the mountains, marveled at the beauty of the Bridger-Teton National Forest, and cruised into Colter Bay just before sunset.

Westbound: 3.5 days, 2,300 miles.

Destination #1: Grand Teton

We spent 3 days driving west to explore Grand Teton National Park and the surrounding national forests. View a full report of our time in the park.

Destination #2: Yellowstone

After a haze and snow filled time in the Tetons, we headed north to Yellowstone National Park. View a full report of our time in the Yellowstone.

After a week in Yellowstone, we headed east, winding our way along the top of Wyoming, and hit several fun spots along the way.

Devil's Tower

Destination #3: Wind Cave

After a few days in eastern Wyoming and poking around South Dakota's Black Hills, we hiked around Wind Cave National Park. Check out what we saw in our trip report.

Destination #4: Badlands

The last major stop on our trip was Badlands National Park in South Dakota. View the full report of our time in the Badlands.

Eastbound

We left the Badlands early in the morning to start our drive back east. We made a quick stop to explore the Minuteman Missle visitors center to fill in the gaps of what we had seen the previous day: a cold war-era underground missile silo buried deep in a South Dakota field. Then we hit the interstate for a day of gaining as many miles as we could muster. We ended 700 miles later in Madison, WI.

The next morning, we packed up, refueled ourselves at a Starbucks, and headed to Indiana Dunes National Park to meet a friend who lived in the area. He showed us around the shoreline, drove us to an old train station, then pointed us to a historical exhibit of futuristic homes built for the 1933 world's fair. We explored around the dunes, then headed for a drive-through ice cream parlor for decadent sundaes. We ended the day just over the Ohio border in the sparsely populated, and oddly idyllically named Holiday City, Ohio. 345 miles.

Our final day of the trip found us driving straight home, a bit tired and a bit sad to know that our 19-day trip had come to an end. We put in another 570 miles and pulled into our driveway late-afternoon.