I-90

Today we started the VERY long drive towards Chicago about 1300 miles away!! We really didn't do much as we spent most of the day driving. Although we were able to appreciate the scenery in Wyoming. Although the terrain itself is mostly flat the colours of the landscape are amazing and occasionally we would come across a rocky formation in the middle of nowhere or an oil well just planted in a field at the side of the road. It was dark when we finally reached the state boarder with South Dakota so we decided to go see if Mt Rushmore was lit up at night. About 11 miles out we passed a sign saying Crazy Horse mountain ½ mile. Since it was so close we decided to go have a look. This turned out to be one of the most surreal experiences so far on our travels... It turns out that Crazy Horse is a mountain carving which started 60 years ago and is still ongoing.. At night they have a light show with lasers and images projected onto the side of the mountain accompanied by music, which is AWESOME!!!!!!!!! And best of all we got in free!!!!! We watches this spectacular scene for about 30 mins until the end of the show. Then with huge grin on our faces we proceeded onwards to Mt Rushmore chuckling the entire way!! We arrived to find it bathed in lights and quite visible from the road, we decided not to pay the $11 entrance fee, it is after all a mountain how close do you need to get to see it... I have to say that although it was quite an impressive sight, we were both slightly underwhelmed after the experience at Crazy Horse. We then carried on to the nights rest stop but not before being completely blinded by a random town in the middle of nowhere which was lit up like a Christmas tree...

The next 2 days was spent driving, with not much to say about them, although we did pass Wall Drug which is a shopping mall selling all sorts of things where every shop is called Wall Drug, there are signs to this phenomenon for hundreds of miles, and the Corn Palace... (yes the Corn Palace a palace covered in corn, supposedly to highlight the lands fertility.!!) The scenery has now turned very English with fields of crops hedgerows and trees lining the motorway and fields of horses and cows, we could quite easily be in the middle of Northamptonshire! We've been travelling nearly a month now, it turning out to be as good as we hoped although there hasn't been quite enough dancing, this should change as we head into the cities. The weather is getting rather hot now we are in the lower states and although we have got used to driving on the wrong side of the road we are still not 100% sure who has right of way at some junctions. However all in all we are having a great time and this month has absolutely flown by! Bertha is still going strong after 5000 miles and even though the 4-litre engine drinks fuels (still more economical than when Matt was driving around with his brakes stuck on!!), with petrol prices at around £2.42 a gallon (4.5l) which work out at an extortionate (or so the Americans think) 54p per litre! We haven't really noticed this!