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Drove back into Cody this morning to get a coffee (the free breakfasts at all the hotels consist of juice, cereal, toast, sometimes hot dishes and the worst percolated coffee ever, so our first stop in the morning is always a decent coffee!) and found that "Hicksville" was a much different place on a Sunday morning. The few people in the street and at the coffee shop were almost normal and all the hillbillies had left town! We had a quick look around and found that mostly it was very neat and tidy, with some nice little houses and green lawns!
We hit the road and proceeded to pass through the biggest variety of country ever! From dry, barren moonscapes to steep winding mountain roads lined with fir trees and the valleys carpeted with green fodder crops, it was a wide contrast of geography! Had a fuel stop in Worland and then it was up and over the Big Horn Mountains - with a high point going over the pass of nearly 3,000 metres! We joined Interstate I90E and motored on through some of the largest oil and gas fields in the north of the US - wide open farmland dotted with pumps and valve stations - with cattle grazing in between!!! Quite bizarre!
Later in the afternoon we ran into a large rain storm which slowed our progress a bit - Greg had to back off from the 80mph speed limit (he was pushing a little over it most times too) and as the rain cleared we arrived in Sturgis, home of the famous motorcycle rally! The 74th event had been held in the first week of August - one reason why we had seen so many bikers about - and the remnants of the festivities were still to be seen in the main streets of the little town. There were all kinds of shops and bars, all looking like something out of the Wild West, but there was very little activity about and after taking a few photos we pushed on to Rapid City.
Not sure of what was in the city centre we chose a motel just off the Interstate and unpacked for the night. There was an "Outback Steakhouse" close by and we decided to give them the privilege of having real Australian diners! They were totally oblivious to the fact that we were Aussies and no one even commented on our accents. The decorations inside were just so not like Australia it was funny - a picture depicting Uluru made it look like a cow pat!!!!!
So today didn't really feature any great sights or scenes, just a myriad of different soil types and features, but it was a thoroughly enjoyable drive.
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