Driving to San Francisco- Day 1

Day 1 was long but it went very well! We left Minneapolis at 8:30 AM and headed west on I-90. Took us about 4-5 hours to get to the South Dakota border.

The drive was very familiar since my Dad grew up on a farm near Lakefield, Minnesota and I still have an aunt and cousins in Worthington, Minnesota.

We stopped at the rest area in Jackson, Minnesota so the dogs could stretch - as well as us :-)

Then we spent hours driving through South Dakota. There really isn't much there until you hit Rapid Falls, SD. We stopped in Murdo, South Dakota to stretch and gas up and because it's such a cool name, Murdo! I had to check it out. :-)

We hit Rapid City, SD around 5 PM. We had dinner and Wendy's since we wanted to make it quick to make our goal of our first overnight stop in Gillette, Wyoming.

The drive so far was un-eventful. An added bonus is that South Dakota speed limit is 75 MPH! Faster than Minnesota so good time.

Night fall came and we finally crossed the Wyoming border so we were excited. We were about 50 miles from Gillette, WY when the weather turned NASTY!

I had checked weather reports and all seemed well but things change fast up in the mountains! And the freezing fog started.

It was pretty scary since we're an desolate area. We had to stop twice to scrape the windshield. Then the snow started to come down hard but luckily we were able to make into Gillette, WY where I had a room reserved at the pet-friendly Holiday Inn Express.

We were so happy to hunker down for the night!

We watched the news and online for weather news and it looked like we would have clear-sailing from Gillette, WY to Rock Springs, WY. Then the mountain area from Wyoming to the Utah border might get ugly so we decided to make sure to leave early on Sunday morning.