6/22 : We left New Jersey at 8:45 AM with Bo-Hyuk, Jane's younger brother from Korea, to start the return trip to home driving 453 miles in 8 hours on the day and arrived Richfield near Cleveland, OH at 4:45 PM. (I have intentionally avoided hotels in large cities but reserved hotels in suburbs) During the whole return trip for 8 days, Bo-Hyuk drove more than half of the time with his International Driver's License of Korea and Jane did not drive at all this time.

6/23 :We drove again almost 8 hours on the 2nd day of the return trip leaving Richfield at 8:45 AM and arriving Oglesby at 3:20 PM, somewhat earlier than planned, after driving 422 miles on the day, as the speed limit was 75 MPH all the way. Driving Interstate Highway 80 in Illinois, we found this Service Area with smoking seats which is impossible to think of these days. Not only it had smoking area, it was about 2 times larger than no-smoking area, though there was no one smoking in this smoking area.

6/24 : There was nothing special on the 3rd. day too - just flat wide farming land of Central Plain. We left Oglesby at 08:50 AM as usual, turned to north at the end of the day to visit Mt. Rushmore and Yellowstone National Park for Bo-Hyuk from Korea. We drove 450 miles in 7.5 hours and arrived at Sioux City, Iowa at 4:20 PM. 

An interesting display at a McDonald in Iowa.

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6/25 :   From today, we will start to visit national parks here and there for a few days not having boring driving. We left Sioux City at 8:00 AM and made a little detour to Highway 240 from Interstate Highway 90 to pass through Badlands National Park on the way to Mt. Rushmore. Badlands National Park is really a "bad lands" as shown here.

We arrived Mt. Rushmore after the visit to Badlands at 5:00 PM driving 506 miles in 9 hours on the day. There was flags of 48 states in alphabetical order and the California was on the first pole.



6/26 : At the Rapid City where we stayed last night after Mt. Rushmore, I found Devils Tower is not too far from there on the way to Yellowstone. Therefore, we made about 40 miles of detour and visited this National Monument.

We left Rapid City very early at 7:30 AM, stopped by Devils Tower and drove to Yellowstone National Park. The driving of Interstate Highway 90 to half way to the Yellowstone was great. But Highway 14 to East Entrance of  Yellowstone was very winding mountain road which was a lot slower than estimated. Today, we had to drive 13 hours for 536 miles to arrive Yellowstone National Park (Old Faithful) at 8:30 PM in spite of early departure, a lot longer than planned. 

A small but beautiful falls in Bighorn National Forest on Highway 14 to Yellowstone.

We have finally arrived Yellowstone National Park after 13 hours of driving.

6/27 : It was another hard day on the next day because a round of Yellowstone National Park took a lot longer time than expected. 

We watched Geyser at 9:10 AM and started driving the park. 

We stopped by the "Biscuit Basin",

passed by Mammoth Hot Spring,

and visited Yellowstone Canyon Lower Fall. By that time, it was already 4:00 PM.

We passed by the beautiful Teton National Park driving south,

and, by the time we arrived at the hotel in Ogden, about 40 miles north of Salt Lake City, it was almost midnight at 11:20 PM. It was a longest day during the trip (more than 14 hours on the road) and quite a thrill to drive at 80-85 MPH in total darkness with high beam headlights for 2-3 hours to arrive  hotel as soon as possible, as there was not many cars around most of the time in the Interstate Highway 15. Everyone was so tired and all of us went to beds as soon as we checked in the hotel in Ogden.

6/28 : Even though it was a long day yesterday, we left Ogden at 7:45 AM as usual on 6/28, drove 549 miles and arrived Reno at 5:15 PM. On the way to Reno, we stopped by the "Bonneville Salt Flats" of Utah along Highway 80 at the border to Nevada, where 622 MPH world record land speed has been established with twin jet engines car. It is salt field which looks like snow in the summer time in the picture below.
 

Well, how could they pass the casino while staying one night in Reno? They stayed, however, only about an hour after dinner in this casino (former MGM) and donated about $60 plus only to Nevada economy. We were very surprised that there were not many gamblers in the casino. Approximately 70-80% of slot machines were not occupied. Because of slower economy? or because it was a Sunday night and most Californian visitors have returned home to work on next day?

6/29 : We left Reno at 7:45 AM as usual, not visiting casino in the morning again, drove 268 miles and returned home around 12:00 noon, completing another round trip on schedule, safely crossing U. S. A.. the 8th. time. 

We drove 7,718 miles this time in 21 days, exactly 3 weeks, leaving on Tuesday and returning on Monday. 
Our 13 years old  Lexus marked 100,000 miles finally during this trip.

It was a great trip and we really enjoyed every moment. It was the first experience for Bo-Hyuk, not only crossing the U. S. A. but to visit Mt. Rushmore, Yellowstone, Badlands etc. etc., and he really enjoyed too. However, it was somewhat harder than last year for us (maybe because we are one year older) - especially short breath and slight headache some times at high altitude (higher than 6,000 ft.) because of low oxygen level which we did not feel at all until last year. I think this is our last driving to cross the continent perhaps, though it was a great very enjoyable trip.

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If you want to see Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, Devils Tower, every corner of Yellowstone, Grand Teton, 
Bonneville Salt Flats etc. etc. in one trip, how many short flights have you to take, if you fly? 
It is only possible, if you drive.

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