And So It Begins

This morning I left for my epic road trip along with my nephew Brandon. The morning was going swell... I picked up the car, picked up the nephew and we were off... until we got 35 miles from home and I realized I forgot my suit! S*&t!! Luckily it wasn't 350 miles from home! So we turned around and got my suit and got back on the road. We made great time through western Minnesota and all of South Dakota. The weather was overcast with intermittent showers for most of the drive. It made for some interesting photo taking but no biggie.


As you may or may not know, South Dakota is like the pheasant hunting capital of the world! There are pheasants every 100 yards along the side of the road. It's insane! My nephew taught me about something called "road hunting" in which you drive down the road with a loaded shotgun and when you see a pheasant you stop, jump out and start shooting! Sounds super safe mom, don't worry! I'd never heard of this but it may explain why pheasants outnumber people 2 - 1 in South Dakota! So when we saw this gem, we had to stop and snap a pic with the world's largest pheasant.

A couple hours later there was a break in the weather and we realized that if we hurried we could make it to the badlands in time to catch the sunset. So I picked up the pace but we had to make a stop in Philip, SD. The town was small and in the middle of nowhere. Not the kind of place that I would like to see sporting my name. I'll have to found a Philip, MN one of these days and do it right!

So we made it to the badlands just in time to catch a couple of cool sunset pics. Got a few of some rams too.

Then it was on to Rapid City to stay with some friends for the night. I was feeling pretty awesome about the day. 700+ miles and smooth sailing... that was until I got pulled over 10 miles from our destination. 76 in a 60. I tried to tell the officer that my grandpa didn't get a ticket on his trip 73 years ago so he should just let me go. He didn't agree.