Dakotas Trip Planning Update

Some significant progress has been made on our Dakotas trip planning for this summer as a result of a session at my house and a lot of emailing back and forth. Flight reservations have been made, as have rental car reservations. So we have starting and ending destinations locked in. We also have a pretty solid outline of what we intend to do in the middle. Exact details will be filled in over time.

The overall outline of our route is shown below, beginning in Denver and ending in Minneapolis. The end point in Minneapolis, while a bit crazy (or frankly a lot crazy...), is a concession to lower airfares out of major airports and the desire not to have to backtrack down to Denver to leave. The cost of that concession is 9.5 hours of interstate driving across the plains on our last day, but at least I'll get another new state out of the bargain. As of now, we plan on passing through (or touching briefly in some cases) Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota and Minnesota.



The general itinerary as it stands now is:

• Day 1 - Fly into Denver late in the day and get to Fort Collins CO for the night.
• Day 2 - Buy supplies in Fort Collins then get to Wind Cave National Park in SD via Scotts Bluff NE.
• Day 3 - Wind Cave and Mount Rushmore ending in the Harney Peak area. All in SD.
• Day 4 - Hiking in the Harney Peak area.
• Day 5 - Devils Tower WY and then cutting through the corner of MT on the way to Bowman ND (on the way to Theodore Roosevelt National Park).
• Day 6 - Teddy Roosevelt National Park ND.
• Day 7 - TRNP ND.
• Day 8 - TRNP ND and the loooong haul to Minneapolis MN.
• Day 9 - Fly home from Minneapolis.

Research continues on campgrounds, hikes, sightseeing highlights and the like. Lots of details left to iron out, but it seems to be coming together nicely and we are well in advance of the trip, so we have plenty of time...