We were up at 6am to get an early start, knowing we still had about 2 days drive to Vegas.

The highway south goes right through Yellowstone, and the views were magnificent. About 10am it started getting really busy with tour buses and lots of cars so we’re glad we had an early start.

We exited Yellowstone and we’re thrown straight into the mountainous scenery of the grand Teton national park. The views of the mountains were amazing.

We drove for 12 hours today, and even though the scenery was beautiful it was hard to enjoy it.

We found a beautiful campsite in Utah, surrounded by hills and overlooking a lake, and it was right on our route!

A couple next to us brought their puppy over for some puppy love. They were really funny.

Should only be a 6 hour drive to Vegas tomorrow where we will need to clean out our van and put it into storage. Then we need to organise a flight from Vegas to lax, then a flight home. I still haven’t been able to get hold of air nz to change our flights, but I notice they still have flights available on their website, so here’s hoping.

We awoke to a miserable day. The temperature has dropped from 40 degrees to 11. It seemed weird we had our air conditioning running the previous night.

We were heading west for glacier national park in Montana when I got a call from lynda to say dad was quite sick.

We made the decision to head south, making our way to Vegas where we have prearranged storage.

We made it as far as Yellowstone np and free camped on the street. Thankfully nobody bothered us.

We woke up in the free parking lot at Medora the musical and we’re thankful to have had a quiet night sleep. There was one other campervan who stayed overnight too.

Today we explored the Theodore Roosevelt national park. It’s is two sections, the south and north. We started with the south and it was kinda like the badlands NP, but not as dramatic. It was 40 degrees again and way too hot to do any hikes, so we just did the scenic drive, seeing more bison and prairie dogs.

The sky was hazy due to Canadian wildfires, so the views weren’t as good as they could have been.

It was an hours drive outside of the park to get to the north unit, so we filled up first and got a gas station pizza. I’ve been blown away by how good pizza is over here, even the gas station ones are good, but they were freshly made , even on a Sunday.

The north unit of the national park was way more dramatic and we enjoyed the scenery here better. Again, it was too hot to walk so we did the scenic drive, stopping at overlooks.

The rest of the day was spent driving into the sun. I am just getting so sick of this heat, it never ends!

We are now heading towards glacier national park which borders Canada. It will be a lot cooler there, but it’s a 9 hour drive to get there.

At 6.30pm we stopped at the shady rv park. It was very expensive but we were tired and a storm was brewing. And we needed showers. Plus they had electric so we could run our air conditioner.

Just as we’d finished our showers the storm rolled in, pelting down with rain and thunder cracking overhead. We couldn’t have timed it better.

We had a great night sleep at our lakeside camp. This morning we went for a 1 hour hike alongside the lake to a dam. It was really hot already, another 40 degree day.

We left camp at midday and drove for most of the afternoon. The roads were very long and straight with the occasional nodding donkey.

We crossed from South Dakota to North Dakota and made our way to Medora which is on the south side of Theodore Roosevelt national park.

All the camping grounds were full being a Saturday night during a long weekend, so we weren’t surprised.

We made a last minute decision to go to an outdoor musical up on the hill. It was such a warm clear evening, it would have been rude not too. The show started at 8.30pm and we made it just in time.

It was about Theodore Roosevelt and had a cowboy set with modern music and dancing. It was amusing and a different way to spend the evening.

At the start of the show we all had to stand up while they sang the national anthem. They also asked all the ex-servicemen to stand up as they acknowledged them. They are local heroes who have fought for their freedom. Freedom from what? Anyone know?

It was 10.30 pm by the time it finished and there was a massive queue getting out, so we decided to sleep the night in the carpark. We just hoped we wouldn’t get “the knock” in the middle of the night asking us to leave.

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It was only a 2 hour drive to Custer state park from badlands and as usual we took the back roads.

At Custer we drove the wildlife loop and got stuck in a bison jam. We stopped to let a bison cross the road and he just stopped right in front of us. In the middle of the road! Then another one joined him! Then another! Next thing, we’re sweltered in our car in 40 degree heat and there’s a traffic jam behind us.

After about 20 minutes, a ranger came along and barged his way through, and we quickly followed him before we got stuck again.

Then we saw some prairie dogs. I just love these guys so much. I really wanted to take one with me.

We finished the wildlife loop and found a lake with a nice sandy beach, put on our togs and cooled off.

Feeling refreshed we continued through Custer where the scenery changed from prairie lands to pinnacle shaped rocks jutting up all over the place. The scenery was stunning. There were also some tight tunnels to go through, the narrowest being only 8 feet wide. I got out and filmed Mike going through.

Then we found another stunning lake surrounded by funky rocks and took a stroll. We met Carissa (from badlands) again here. But she is now heading south and we are heading north.

We drove past Mt Rushmore and saw the presidents heads carved in stone, but we didn’t bother stopping.

We navigated towards the Theodore Roosevelt national park in North Dakota as that will be our next national park to visit.

It was already 6.30pm, an hour from sunset, and we needed to find somewhere to camp as all the state park ones were full.

As we were driving along, two separate families of deer tried to jump out in front of us. It wasn’t a safe time of night to be driving. By chance, I saw a turnoff to a lake in the national forest with a very small camping symbol.

We headed down there and found a camp right beside the lake but there was a campground full sign up. But… they had one campsite left and it was overlooking the lake. How lucky was that? And only $14 for the night.

What an incredible day. It started with an amazing sunrise right from our campsite. We hadn’t known what our view would be this morning as we parked up in the dark last night. I don’t think it could have been better. We were right on the edge overlooking a lunar landscape.

We drove back into badlands national park to see the bits we missed in the dark last night. The first thing we saw was a massive bison on the side of the road. We gave him a wide berth as he looked pretty scary.

Then 100 ft later were the prairie dogs, popping their heads up calling out to Alan. It was it Steve.

The scenery here is incredible. We’d been here before in 2008 and I remember loving it then.

We headed back to the same spot as we camped the previous night and spent the afternoon sleeping, and marvelling over our fantastic views.

We met a nice girl who came in the camp last night just after us. She is driving across the country from Maryland to go to grad school in Portland. We kept seeing her throughout the day and tonight she bought a friend she’d met. So we hung out with them for a bit, they were good fun.

Tomorrow we go to Custer state park.

Today we stopped at the worlds largest ball of popcorn. It was behind glass and a little underwhelming. But there was a cool old fashioned village there to look around.

The rest of the day was spent driving through the corn fields of Iowa. When we got to Sioux City it became really hazy. We thought it may have been smog but it’s more likely from the Canadian wildfires.

We drove through Nebraska and the scenery became more rolling hills and less cornfields. Then we crossed into South Dakota and the badlands began, like a lunar landscape.

It was 6pm by the time we got to a fuel stop just outside the badlands national park. We were both really hot and bothered. We’d been driving in 40 degree heat all day, with the sun streaming into our windscreen all afternoon.

We had a little break in the air conditioned gas station, had a free coffee, then decided to continue into the national park even though the sun would still be setting.

What a great decision this was. The sun setting over the badlands was a magical sight, the different layers and colours coming to life.

Then we had to drive 40 minutes to the boondocking site I’d read about. It’s free camping overlooking the badlands but just outside of the national park.

We passed two campgrounds on the way there, but they looked crowded and horrible. So we continued on in the dark, putting our trust in Google to get us there.

After 40 mins the road turned off to a rutted gravel path and we drove in it. Caravans and campervans of all shapes and sizes lined the edge. We drove to the end and found a spot, careful not to drive off the edge.

There was a super moon up, a blue moon and there was plenty of light from that.

We were both excited to see what we would wake up to in the morning.

We stayed 16 hours at the world’s largest truck stop! It was really cool, a big shop with everything you could imagine for sale. Even jandals shaped like fish!

We had a good night sleep and browsed the truck museum this morning, which had trucks dating back to 1915. It was really cool, my kind of museum.

We were back on the road at 10.30am and are off the freeways again and heading for South Dakota.

It was a fairly boring day of driving with lots of corn fields. Field of dreams was filmed around this area but we didn’t bother going to the movie set location as I’ve never seen it. I tried to watch it once but it was the boringest thing I’d ever seen.

Today we saw a fatal motorcycle accident which was pretty sobering and dropped our mood considerably. We didn’t see it happen thankfully, probably due to me taking a toilet break. But it had just happened and a guy was bringing out the plastic sheet to cover him.

Tonight we are camped at a camping ground in sacs city, which has a population of about 2000, so not really a city. It’s only $17 a night and it was nice to have a shower.

We had a nice quiet nice parked outside the visitor centre michigan city. I admit I was a little worried about the close proximity to Chicago, but apparently its a safe town. We’d met a few people who have moved here from Chicago to escape the violence there. So we felt quite safe parked up overnight, but driving out today was a different story. More about that later.

This morning we explored the Indiana dunes national park. It’s an interesting one as it’s not a contiguous area, having industrial parts in amongst it. But they created the national park to protect it from future development.

Indiana dunes has a whole lot of white sandy beaches on the edge of Lake Michigan, and it really is like being at the beach. We could see the Chicago skyline in the haze in the distance.

There’s a big sand dune which is on the move, trampling big trees in its path, moving 4feet a year.

There were also some futuristic houses built in the 1930s which had been placed there from a trade fair in Chicago. The houses were ahead of their time with dishwashers, automatic garage doors and one was solar heated. They thought in the future everyone would have their own plane, and one house had its own hangar. It’s crazy considering most people didn’t even have cars back then.

Around 2pm we continued on, and found ourselves in the slums of south Chicago. I really didn’t feel safe so we decided to swallow our pride and drive on freeways, at least until we left Chicago behind.

So the rest of the day was spent on boring motorway driving.

Tonight we’re camping at the largest truck stop in the world! And it’s free! And there’s a cool museum we will explo

Since we left our housesit we haven’t paid for camping so we’re slowly recouping our costs of solar panels and batteries. As well as that, it’s just so convenient to stop at these free places without needing electricity. So far, so good.

We had a quiet night at the rest stop and were able to get some laundry done this morning before heading off.

We weren’t sure how much the toll road was going to cost us and we’re pleasantly surprised is was only $1.75. Money well spent to get a shower, laundry and sleep done.

We’re continuing our drive west. We have about 4000 miles (6300 kms) to travel on the route we’ve chosen to Las Vegas where we’ll be storing our campervan when we head back to nz.

We passed a classic car meetup and stopped and browsed around the neat old cars. We almost though about parking Rodger in amongst them.

The rest of the day was spent driving through Ohio and Indiana. There was lots of farmland and it was cool seeing all the Amish out and about in their Sunday best.

There wasn’t much to do along this route so we thought it best to make up some miles.

We stopped at 6pm at a casino in south bend which had free overnight parking. It was a nice new casino with a no smoking rule, and I think they were pumping oxygen in as we both came out feeling really refreshed.

The sun was still high in the sky and it seemed too early to stop. Then I realised we would be gaining an hour today as we’re heading west. So we continued on.

We arrived at another casino on Michigan city but neither of us liked the idea of staying there. It probably would have been fine as they have security patrolling every hour, but it’s best to listen to gut instinct.

We then tried the national park at Indiana dunes but it was fully booked. But the ranger said we could park at the visitor centre for free.

But first we headed to Lake Michigan where there is a distant view of the Chicago skyline and the sun starting to set.

We were the only ones at the visitor centre to start with, but other campervans arrived to stay the night. We had a quiet nights rest.