Last month, I did a three-week road trip with my big brother. It had been nearly 40 years since the two of us had spent this much time together on the road. Whatever doubts or uncertainties we had going in, those were quickly set aside as we embarked upon what ended up being an epic road trip adventure.
We spent 21 days together, visited 9 states, 6 national parks, monuments and historic sites, and enjoyed an absolutely lovely time with my brother's daughter and her family.
We drove 4,371 miles. Along the way, I made 5,949 photos. That number doesn’t include the 729 photos taken with my smartphone.
It was three weeks of endless awesome experiences…reconnecting with my big brother, wolves howling at dawn in Yellowstone, pintos grazing the Little Bighorn battlefield, the pastel hues of the Badlands, being surrounded by snow-covered peaks in Rocky Mountain National Park, meeting my grand niece and nephew for the first time, seeing an original signed copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, Potato Creek Johnny’s gold nugget, crossing the Missouri and Mississippi rivers…twice, bison and bear jams, moose, elk, deer, bighorn sheep, pronghorn, coyotes, bald eagle, hawks, marmots, and pikas.
Oh yeah, and a 5-cent cup of coffee at Wall Drug.
Over the next three weeks, I’m going to share photos and stories from our road trip. While my hope is that the photos will allow you to experience some of the joy and adventure we had, my dream is that this will inspire you to do something similar. If you’ve got a sibling you haven’t seen in years, a brother or sister you used to torment almost daily…but those days are so very long past, make the time to spend some time with them in the next year. Make some new memories – possibly some final memories – with your brother or sister.
If you do, you’ll discover what I was reminded of and, frankly, we should already know: nobody ever regrets spending more time with a sibling.
I flew into Chicago on June 8th. Originally, I was going to pick up a campervan I’d reserved in January for the trip. However, on June 6…yup, two days before I was scheduled to fly out, I got a call from the owner of the RV. He told me it had been in an accident and wouldn’t be road worthy for my trip.
I spent about three hours feeling depressed; convinced I was going to have to cancel the trip. Then I got to work on the Interwebs. I reserved a three-week, unlimited mileage rental of a Nissan Sentra through Enterprise, canceled all the campsites and RV park reservations I’d made and reserved hotel rooms in every one of the 11 cities and towns we’d stop at during the trip.
Two days later, I flew from Flagstaff to Chicago as scheduled. The next morning, I picked up the rental car, drove to Madison, Wisconsin and picked up my brother We left Madison on the afternoon of June 9th and drove to La Crosse, Wisconsin, for the night. Our hotel room overlooked the Mississippi River. The next day, we drove through Minnesota into South Dakota, overnighting in Sioux Falls, and arriving the next day in Wall, the small town with the big drug store. Wall is a gateway community to Badlands National Park.
We had an afternoon and a full day to explore the Badlands. We saw pronghorn, bison, bighorn sheep and some truly astounding natural landscapes. This first set of images features some wildlife we saw on that first afternoon and evening in the park.
