Hightailing it Across Washington, Montana, and South Dakota

From British Columbia, we rounded a corner and began the long trek back east. There's not a whole lot we were interested in seeing in a few states, so we just decided to make as much headway as we could (and as fast as we could). We had wanted to stop at Yellowstone National Park in Montana, but with a forecast of heavy rain and mid-30s temps, we knew we'd be miserable and decided to skip it. Plus, it's now been more than two months since we left New York, and we're starting to get just a tad anxious to get back east and find a new place to call home.

Snow-capped mountains in northern Washington state

When we left Vancouver on Saturday morning, we drove 10.5 hours to Missoula, Montana. On Sunday, we drove 11 hours to Rapid City, South Dakota. Driving across these big western states literally takes more than a full day. For perspective, it takes more time to drive across Montana than it takes to drive from upstate NY to North Carolina. One state!!

It took three days to drive from point A to point B above

Anyway, from the morning we left Vancouver, we'd been plagued by a big storm system... we were constantly driving in rain, and just as we'd get in front of the storm after a day of driving, it would catch up and get in front of us again overnight.

A break in the clouds in Washington (first driving day):

Some driving days were worse than others... on Sunday, we saw a doe get hit right in front of us. We were in the left lane, and a car just to our right, maybe two seconds in front of us, hit a doe at 75mph as she tried to cross the road. Her fawn was waiting in the median to follow her. It was awful, violent, and terrifying. Tom and I kept going because we were in shock, but as we snapped out of it we realized we should've stopped. It seemed like the people were okay even though the front of their car was destroyed - they slowly drove about 50 feet more and pulled off the highway after it happened - but what if they needed a phone or a ride to the next town? And the poor deer... there's no way she survived, and who knows what happened to her baby after that. Once the shock wore off I lost it... it's a good thing Tom was driving, because I was a blubbering wreck. It was so awful.

Driving through constant rain & construction zones in Montana

The drive on Monday, from Rapid City, SD, to Sioux Falls, SD was also bad. This was a shorter drive - six hours - but it was comparable to the day we got caught in Oklahoma City tornadoes. We covered less distance today because we wanted to stop at a few places and let the storm get farther ahead of us (which did not work out as planned). We stopped at Mount Rushmore, The Badlands, and Wall Drug - I'll write about those places in the next post so I can keep the driving/storms together.

So Monday night, we had a few hours left to Sioux Falls, and the rain was so heavy and intense that we couldn't even see a foot in front of our car. It was literally like we were directly underneath a giant waterfall. Tom was driving, I was following the storm on weather.com, and we were listening to the radio for announcements. Throughout these few days of driving in bad weather, we've seen quite a few 18-wheelers overturned, and tonight was not an exception. It's quite scary driving next to these monsters in a little car when you can hardly see and lanes are narrow from construction. As we neared Sioux Falls, there was a gigantic band of intense rain and wind that forecasters said was rotating up across the highway where we were heading, so we pulled off and got dinner to let it cross the highway. After stopping, the rain wasn't as bad, and we made it safely to our hotel. We were exhausted.

Here are some pictures of what we could(n't) see while driving and a shot of the radar. That long band of red was just rotating and hovering over the heartland of America for days...

Up next: Monday's events - Mount Rushmore, The Badlands, and Wall Drug (we actually caught a break from the rain while we were here, only to catch it again that night!)