Cross-Country Road Trip: Chicago to Bismarck

After getting a good night's rest at Andrea's, we were up early the next morning to get started on the long drive.  Up until this point, we had stopped and done things or visited with people but after Chicago, it was just three straight days of driving through Big Sky Country and whatever you call Eastern Washington.

First order of business was getting His Highness nice and comfortable.  The drives on the other days had been 8-9 hours at the most, but starting this day (a Sunday!), we would be driving around 14 hours each day for the next two days.

A 14-hour drive meant an early start time.  We had a long day ahead of us so we left as early as we could.

We got the GPS up and ready to go for the drive, which was about 830 miles.

GPS estimate of a 14.5 hour drive!

Before we really got going though, we of course had to make a stop at Dunkin' Donuts.  Claudius and I waited outside while Marek got his fix, especially since there are no Dunkin' Donuts where we were going, something I still don't think he's gotten over!

DID YOU GET YOUR COFFEE YET?

The drive out from Chicago was the farthest east I had ever driven!  We headed up through Milwaukee...

And Claudius and I snoozed through most of the rain, which went on for a couple of hours I think.

Furrowed doggie brow

At some point we stopped for a bite at McDonald's.  I think the order was written down because I got the wrong things during a previous stop.  All this food is Marek's, too!

After eating, we kept on driving, and the skies started to clear up.

I can tell by the pants in this picture that I had taken over driving at this point.  The weather was nicer and Marek took his turn catching some ZZZZZs.

We made it to Minnesota!

We saw a sign for "Manning Ave" so I had to take a picture. :)

We stared longingly at the sign that said Fargo, ND was less than 200 miles away.  Too bad we had another 200 miles to after Fargo!

We finally made it to North Dakota!

Driving in North Dakota was pretty boring.  Lots of open space and nothing much to look at, but at least the sky cleared up so it was a nice, sunny drive.

We got to the hotel in the evening (a Radisson).  The door to the hotel from the garage creeped us out a little, but it was a very nice hotel.