We got into Sheridan late the night of October 13th. After a wonderful dinner with Kaz and Dasha downtown, we retreated to their place, in a new neighborhood north of town. We stayed up way too late that night, catching up with their new life in Sheridan. We enjoyed sleeping in a bit, before getting started on some errands- we (unsuccessfully) looked for a down jacket for both of us, stocked up on food, and picked up a few jeep parts. We then met up with Delaney’s college friend Tristan, who works as an engineer in Sheridan. It was great to catch up after a few years without seeing him! That evening, we headed south to Buffalo where Delaney’s friends Matt and Riley had just had a newborn- only 5 days old! They were incredibly gracious hosts, and we had a great evening with them, Tristan, & Tristan’s girlfriend Moriah. We looked at Matt’s sawmill, their amazing garden, and caught up after a few years apart. Matt managed to pawn off quite a few fruits & vegetables from their garden on us- as I write this exactly a month later, we still have some onions left! They have all been delicious.
The next night we spent with Kaz & Dasha, reminiscing about our time in Alaska together, as well as unpacking the many Amazon boxes we’d sent ahead to them. Amazon in Alaska had been having some really long shipping times- over a month in some cases- that we had stopped ordering things by late August, sending them on to Sheridan instead. Dasha & Delaney went out to grab some steaks for dinner as Kaz and I attempted to adapt my laptop charger from the standard 120v AC wall outlet to instead connect to a DC voltage converter I’d installed in the jeep before we left. I’ll probably make a separate post in the Build page about the specifics- but it works! As I write this today, November 12th in Escalante, UT, the laptop is charging off the jeep electrical system for the first time.
We sadly left Sheridan the next morning, headed east to Minnesota. It was unfortunately a foggy and drizzly day- but we opted for the back route out of Sheridan, highway 14, which was quite scenic. It would carry us all the way to Gillette. We marveled at the massive coal mines on the outskirts of town- enormous holes in the ground, making the giant haul trucks look like ants as they crawled their way out of the mines. How cool to see where a huge percentage of the nation’s power comes from! I had toured a coal power plant in Wheatland in college some years earlier as part of my engineering degree, which is notable for being the only power plant that services both the eastern and western power grids.
After filling up all 3 fuel tanks, we followed coal trains west on I90 out of Gillette, before heading north at Moorcroft to Devil’s Tower. As we approached, the previously foggy and drizzly day turned even more rainy. Fortunately, due to the government shutdown, admission was free! As we pulled up to the tower, it was pouring rain. We hesitated a bit about bothering to do the hike around the tower, but figured we may as well. Good thing we did! It was well worth the stop- the tower is absolutely magnificent, and we thoroughly enjoyed our hike. It is startlingly massive when up close. The individual columns that make up the tower are clearly evident, even more so when looking at the giant pieces that have fallen off in centuries past. Due to the rain, we didn’t see any climbers, but it must be an incredible view from on top.
After Devil’s Tower, we knew we had a long drive ahead of us to get all the way to Delaney’s parents in Pillager, Minnesota. But one more detour would stop us- Sitting Bull’s grave, near Mobridge, SD. The site also houses a memorial to Sakakawea, who was from the area. It was a beautiful place- high above Lake Oahe, with a commanding view of the surrounding area. We were very glad to have made the stop.
We didn’t get to Pillager until about 1:30am the next morning. We nearly ran over a porcupine about 20 minutes from our destination, and felt like we were dodging deer the whole night. We both fell asleep nearly instantly. We slept in a bit, and enjoyed a slow day for once, catching up with Delaney’s parents. I started work on some small jeep projects, installing some of the parts that we had picked up in Sheridan. We loved not having anything to do- all our previous days on the trip had either been long drive days, or full of activity. We especially loved it, because the next day would be chock-full of activity.
We got up early that morning, and drove down to Minneapolis to see Delaney’s grandmother and grandfather at White Bear Lake. After a lovely breakfast and walk with them, we went to see Delaney’s Aunt Cindy, not far away. After a great time catching up with her, we went over to Chisago City, to see Delaney’s other grandmother. She loved seeing the jeep, and reminisced about her and her late husband’s own RV trips across North America. She also showed us some great photos from when Delaney and her siblings were little. We then went to Delaney’s Aunt Ingrid and Uncle Mark’s in Forest Lake, which was Delaney’s father’s childhood home. They put on a great bonfire, and I had a great time meeting a bunch of the Dent side of the family. Things wrapped up around 1:30 in the morning, and we toughed out a long drive in the dark back to Pillager.
We spent the next few days with Delaney’s parents, with no particular agenda. I fixed a few more things on the jeep, Delaney found a nice puffy jacket at Costco of all places, and we enjoyed a few slow days after a hectic travel pace. We went out to breakfast with Delaney’s sister Brittany, walked out to the Lake Placid dam, and were thoroughly trounced at dominoes by Delaney’s parents. Delaney’s dad helped me with a bracket for a 3rd brake light, which I’d forgotten we needed. Our bumper and tire carrier combo removed the stock 3rd brake light, so I’d purchased one that fit inside the spare tire- forgetting that we would be covering up the spare tire with a “trasharoo” bag, as well as the light! Jeff found a piece of metal that would work perfectly, so we bent it up and made it so that it would mount above the spare tire. Now all I had to do was find a small red LED light that I could attach to the bracket!
It was difficult to leave. But- we had to meet Delaney’s sister Becky in Grand Rapids, MI in a few days, so we went up through Duluth to see her Aunt Julie, Uncle Thor, and cousin Kiersten. We had a great dinner at a local pizza joint before driving east into Wisconsin, and then the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We camped in Ottawa National Forest, our first time sleeping in the jeep since Wyoming! We forgot we had crossed a time zone while driving in the dark the previous night, and woke up way too early, but started driving anyways. We were aiming to get to Grand Rapids by early afternoon, so we weren’t able to stop at many of the UP’s many attractions, but we did enjoy the tail end of the fall colors. We stopped to make breakfast near Marquette, at Presque Isle Park. We enjoyed seeing an iron ore carrier be loaded, while Lake Superior’s huge waves crashed over a breakwater. The wind off the lake made for a beautiful scene at the park as the fall leaves fell all around us.
Back in the jeep, we made tracks towards the Straits of Mackinac and the Mackinac Bridge. The visitor center for the bridge is very well done and clearly explains the need for the bridge, the funding, engineering, & construction challenges, and the bridge’s impact on the area. We were shocked to read that it is the longest suspension bridge between anchorages in the western hemisphere! There seems to be some argument on how exactly to define the length of a suspension bridge- but the above is the definition given in the visitor center. No doubt the definition has something to do with the Golden Gate bridge having a longer “main span”. Oh to be in the room when these debates are had.
Crossing the bridge was an interesting experience- the left lane of both directions is a metal grate, while the right lane is concrete. Supposedly this mitigates the wind harmonic issues that doomed the famous Tacoma Narrows bridge in 1940. We enjoyed the metal grate decking- many bridges in remote areas of Canada are similar, though I believe that those are to help with icing issues instead of wind harmonics. The bridge carries the road high above the Straits to facilitate the iron ore carriers passing below. We stopped for lunch in Mackinaw City, on the south side of the bridge. We had some fancy hot dogs, which we did not think much of.
We finally made it down to Grand Rapids after a long day of driving. We were a bit wow-weary of the fall leaves, which had mostly faded to colors like “brown-yellow” and “brown-red”. We met Delaney’s sister Becky, her husband James, and two children at their AirBNB in Rockford. They had come up from their home in Alabama for a wedding, which was quite convenient for us- it meant we didn’t need to drive to Alabama to see them! We had a nice few days with them, which included trips to a nearby park, babysitting the children while Becky and James attended the wedding, and enjoying some needed time catching up. It is crazy to think of how big the kids will have grown when we see them next! We left the morning of the 26th, finally headed back west. We will be going west all the way until we hit the Pacific Ocean, but not for a few weeks yet!
I have a small bucket list goal to take a jeep to all 63 of our National Parks. I take a picture of the jeep in front of the entrance sign to “prove” that I have been there. As Indiana Dunes National Park (recently converted from a state park) was on our route south around Lake Michigan, we made the very small detour to the park and went for a short hike. We were deeply unimpressed with the park compared to the grandeur of the western parks, but I suppose public land and unique geology is much more uncommon east of the Mississippi. That being said, it should definitely just be a state park- there was really nothing notable about it other than apparently being host to a lot of diverse plant life. I am fairly certain some local businessman made a generous donation to an Indianan politician. Off my soapbox, at least I have this one ticked off! That makes 18/63, though I have been to around 10 more without a jeep. The road goes ever on!
Past the Dunes, we dove headlong into Chicago to meet my cousin Peter. Half an hour of hectic lane-changing later, we met at O’Shaughnessy’s Public House, and I enjoyed a wonderful Reuben sandwich. We had a great time catching up to his life in the Windy City! We are not city people, but with all the fun Peter is having there, it makes us think twice about completely poo-pooing city life.
We made our way out of Chicago and headed north towards Madison, avoiding the many toll roads as best we could. We knew we had left Illinois and were into Wisconsin when we saw a building labeled “Cheese and Beer”! We made it to my Aunt Joan and Uncle Patrick’s place outside of Madison that evening, and had a wonderful family dinner with them, Uncle John & Aunt Michelle, and many cousins. I enjoyed talking shop with Uncle John, who had recently built large solar system power his house. We had even read many of the same forum posts while designing our systems, without knowing it!
We camped close to Madison that night and after a Chik-Fil-A breakfast, we met up with my cousin Stephen, his wife Abbey, and their two children. I had a great time catching up with Stephen- he and I, as well as a few others, bagged a lot of RMNP’s high peaks together when we were all in high school. He has gotten into 3D-printing topographical features, and painting them to make a true-to-scale model. He has a large project in his basement- a ~3′ x 5′ model of all of RMNP! He has gifted many smaller models of mountains & valleys to friends and family- I will probably commission one when I return from this trip!
After a sad goodbye to Stephen and Abbey, we went into Portage, WI to pick up a few jeep parts, including a new pair of struts for our camper top- ours have been sagging and we’ve been looking out for replacements. The NAPA store unfortunately only had one, with the other up in Stevens Point, where we would be the next day. The NAPA in Portage was attached to a really cool, old-school machine shop- I’ve only seen a couple other NAPAs like it. It seemed that you could get anything in there, and the only workers were a bunch of old dudes who looked like they’d been around the block.
We found a great campsite in Pine Island State Wildlife Area, just south of the Wisconsin River. Deer hunting seemed to be in full swing as there were lots of trucks slowly driving up and down the road, eyes peeled to the sides. This camp was our first opportunity of the trip to feel like we weren’t rushing off to the next thing- we had a few hours to ourselves before dark, without anywhere to be until lunch the next day.
We woke up, well rested, and headed west then north through the Wisconsin Dells. I’d been there once before, probably when I was in middle school, and I’d completely forgotten how *crazy* the place is. The roadsides are packed with zany sculptures, resorts, waterparks, zoos, hotels, theme parks, you name it. The topography was also far more interesting than anywhere we’d been since Devil’s Tower back in Wyoming- deeply cut cliffs plunged down to the river, with tall bridges and high hills everywhere.
We followed farm roads north, staying off the interstate as usual. We met my cousin John and his 4 children in Stevens Point for lunch- his wife Nicola was unfortunately busy at work. We had a great tour of their home from him and his kids, and the kids loved climbing all over the jeep. In true Wisconsin form, john made some amazing brats for lunch. The children and I discussed the merits of learning math- I’m not sure if the message got through. After another sad goodbye, we headed north through Wausau (where my mother is from) to Balsam Lake, where Delaney’s godmother Renée lives. She gave us a grand tour of her and her husband Jason’s amazing property- it looks so much like what Delaney and I want someday! We had a wonderful evening together, and stayed in their guest bedroom that night. After a slow morning together, we said our goodbyes and headed west to Nebraska- but not before one last stop at Culver’s!
The rest of the day was a long, flat drive through farm country. I *love* many things about the midwest, more than most, but perhaps not its topography. We passed Iowa’s highest point, which was nothing more than an imperceptible bump in the countryside. Harvest season was in full swing, with almost every field having a combine or tractor in it. We arrived at my Aunt Kathy and Uncle Scott’s place in St. Libory, NE at around 10pm that night. They met us with homemade sugar cookies (Grandma’s old secret recipe) and we all went to bed soon thereafter.
The next day was the day before Halloween! We went up to St. Paul to see the elementary school parade of all the kids in costumes- with my cousin Tess’s daughter being one of them! After some time at the city park, we went back to St. Libory. Aunt Kathy and Uncle Scott live on the old family farm there, which has been in the family since ~1896 when my great-great-great-grandfather homesteaded there. I feel more at home at the farm than anywhere else in the lower 48.
The next few days were a wonderful recharge after hurtling through the northern midwest. We spent an afternoon up near Farwell, where my cousin Tess and her husband Nicholas have a huge farm. We carved pumpkins, played with their dog and cats, and had a great time getting the kids ready for trick-or-treating that night. We knocked off a few jeep tasks, including commissioning the water system, which we had held off doing in case it froze in Canada or the colder northern states. Everything miraculously worked, and has worked flawlessly since. We also moved a sliding barn door, which had once lived in the old granary building on the farm, down to the basement of the house, and hung it up as a bathroom door. It was so cool to see a door that was easily 100 years old be useful again!
As always, it was very hard to leave. I’ve spent a lot of time on the farm since starting college, more than anywhere else outside of Alaska, and I will miss it dearly. Thanks to Aunt Kathy and Uncle Scott for their amazing hospitality! We left the morning of November 2nd, headed west for Longmont, where we had another family gathering to get to! We stayed off the interstate, driving on Highway 30 most of the way. My dad remembers his family driving on Highway 30 from Colorado out to Grand Island for family gatherings, before the interstate (I80) was built! How cool to follow the same road, now mostly bypassed, 60-odd years later.
We arrived in Longmont after a long day on the road to a family party in full swing. My Uncle Bernard and Aunt Sally put out an amazing dinner for all of us, and we all had a great time catching up. My Uncle Robert brought out a large atlas, and we had a great time pouring over it, looking at all the different places Delaney and I will go. As always, the kids loved the tour of the jeep, climbing all over it. Before the party broke up, we also “updated” a family photo- for years, at all of these family gatherings, we have taken a photo of everyone on the same staircase. This was the first photo I’d been a part of for quite a long time!
As darkness fell, Delaney and I left for Arvada, where we would be staying with Delaney’s friend Torri and her fiance Andrew for the next few nights. We stayed up way too late, reminiscing about college and catching up with all the things that had happened since. For better or worse, they both had a lot of time off the next few days due to the government shutdown. We climbed Mt. Galbraith the first morning together, with the obligatory Chik-Fil-A stop after. The next day Delaney and I had designated to be an errand day. Denver was the last big city we planned to spend any time in, so we wanted to get as much of the remaining tasks on our list done. I found a used puffy jacket at a great price (feral outdoor near Lakeside is an amazing used outdoor gear shop), and we each picked up some hiking shoes and pants at REI. We duplicated our jeep key so that we have a spare, which is kind of an ordeal. Because our jeep is apparently new and fancy, you can’t just go to Home Depot and copy the key for $2.99, like I can with my old Cherokee. For some reason, the new keys have some sort of technology in them that costs a lot of money. The Jeep dealership wants 340$ to duplicate the key. Delaney was able to find a mobile locksmith that could do it for 160$. The locksmith showed up in an old minivan with a few tools in the back, as well as a pair of trainees. The trio were from Tajikistan, and they couldn’t believe that we were driving the jeep all the way to Argentina. They did insist that we someday visit Tajikistan, which we may well do with how much they talked it up- safe, cheap, and 97% mountains. Sounds like our kind of place! All in all, they successfully duplicated the key, and with hearty handshakes all three wished us well on the trip.
Finally, we met up with my cousin Dilan for lunch, who happened to be in town for a work conference, just when we were in town! We had a great time together, which was far too short. Hopefully he and his wife Rachel can come visit us in South America! We spent the rest of the day with Torri and Andrew, and again stayed up far too late talking. The next morning, Delaney and I drove by my grandparent’s old house in Northglenn. I hadn’t been there since my grandparents had moved out to St. Libory in 2020, just after I graduated college. It had been their home for nearly 60 years, and I have many fond memories there growing up. I was struck by how it really hadn’t changed at all since I’d seen it last.
After winding our way through Northglenn, Delaney and I headed up to Boulder to meet up with Torri and Andrew at the Celestial Seasonings tea factory. Delaney loves tea, and I had hoped to surprise her with the tour- but she suggested it before I could surprise her! The tour is nothing spectacular, but the smells in the factory are. The peppermint room is particularly memorable- pallets and pallets of mint produce an eye-wateringly intense smell. I had to stop Delaney from buying the entire gift shop out of tea (I kid, but only a little). We had lunch at a small pizza place near the factory, before leaving Torri and Andrew. Delaney, and perhaps I, will be back for their wedding in May 2026!
Finally, we were headed up into the Rocky Mountains. I hadn’t been back to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park since the summer of 2018, and I couldn’t wait to be back!
Phew!!!! You guys are wearing me out. Love it!