A Post From the Open Road

Hello - it's midnight at home and 11:00 mountain time on the road headed to Belle Fourche, SD. We are headed to a weekend of R & R with the Odenbach's. Can't wait to get there. We decided to leave later in the day for two reasons. 1. Wyatt sleeps in the car and it's a lot less stress for mommy & daddy when Wyatt is sleeping 2. Jon had to work until 5:30. Pretty good reasons huh?  So here we are on the road and thanks to my handy-dandy Verizon air card I'm blogging from I-90 just passing the Wall, SD Exit #110 (Home of the World Famous Wall Drug). *Sidenote another reason I'm blogging -  and not just because I can, it is because the stimulation is keeping me awake which helps the driver a.k.a Jon stay awake.
We have had quite an interesting adventure already on this trip - I'm okay with no more! But first how we started the evening...

This is Wyatt, he was supposed to be picking up his toys so we could get ready to go. He was having way more fun in his boots than picking up.

This is the sky in Mitchell, SD when we pulled off the interstate. For those of you non-SD people Mitchell is only about 2 hours from our house (our total travel time tonight about 6.5 hours)...yeah not far into the journey at all.  So...after a warning phone call from family we got on our laptop and watched the radar.

After seeing the radar and listening to the radio...this is where we decided to park. Hail my friends is not our friend.  So we drove through Arby's and parked right here in the "Mega Wash" for a front row seat for the storm and dinner.

Here's Jon calling to let everyone know we are safe. Wyatt was pretty disturbed by the weather....can't you tell!

So after 70 mph winds, torrential rain, a sprinkling of hail and some fierce lightening we were back on the road...an hour later. Jon got some crazy video of the wind blowing signs over and the trees going nuts in the wind (however I'm not sure how to post that yet). We also heard from "home" that we have a tree down and many branches in the yard. That will be a fun thing to return home to! *Above: This was the cool sunset and clouds as we were due west once again - away from the storm. Minus the bug spots on the windshield kind of a cool picture.

Okay well the lights of Rapid City are now within sight (specks on the horizon) and hopefully soon we will be climbing into a cozy bed. And hopefully I have made sense through my glazed-over eyes and foggy brain. I'm usually in bed long ago!