(Wow, it’s been awhile since I blogged about this cross country road trip. Call it a much needed sanity break from it. You can read about the day one and day two).

Day three started a lot better then day two did. For one, the cats kept their crack level down slightly. Sure, they were knocking over suitcases and being their usual jerky selves, however they did manage to sleep a little. This is surprising since I should honestly let you in on a little secret for this road trip:

We sedated the cats.

It’s not like we hard-core elephant tranquilized the cats (though Mack wanted to, since they were in his car). One simple pill and towels sprayed down with relaxing spray and the cats were out cold for most of the four days in the car… minus day one when Gracie went without a pill and she complained… The. Whole. Time. (I can only mildly joke about it due to the complaining Mack and Bob did at me about the situation).

After our complementary breakfast (I’m all about those when traveling, true fact) we gathered all the animals into the car once more (which, with four cats, two sugar gliders, and eleven fish it was no small feat) we were on the road again.

Like day two, there was a whole lot of nothing followed by more nothingness. The more we drove through it, the less I got creeped out about wide open spaces. The first time I visited my friend in Oklahoma at the age of eighteen I had to confess to her that being able to see the horizon seriously weirded me out. In Washington you can’t see the horizon really. There is usually trees, hills, mountains, or rain blocking your view. Living in Arizona and Florida I think it prepared me well for the cross country drive.

Unlike the previous days this day, we had a time table, of sorts, that we were following. And by “we” I mean the boys were ordering Hayley and I not to dilly-daddle if we wanted to see both the Corn Palace and Mount Rushmore that day. Much to Hayley and my disappointment (and whining and crying) we missed De Smet and thus denied our inner elementary age selves the joy of visiting a part of Laura Ingalls Wilder history.

We did, fortunately, make it to the corn palace early afternoon and were duly impressed.

Early in our talks of driving cross country, I told Mack that no matter what the following conditions must be met:

1. We are not driving through Texas again. Driving across the widest part of the state four times in a year was more then enough for us and our sanity.
2. We were driving to and visiting the Corn Palace.

Simple enough conditions, right?

After the Corn Palace and all it’s glory, we had the long time between there and Mount Rushmore. How did we keep ourselves entertained? By playing Oregon Trail on the walkie-talkies between cars.

When we finally got to Mount Rushmore a few hours later it was an awesome tourist trap, as to be expected with national monuments.

I guess what stuck out most in my mind about Mount Rushmore was that it was a lot smaller then I expected and also the people there… kind of weird. I say that because when we came down from viewing the small (but awesome!) Mount Rushmore I found people hovering near the back of my car taking pictures of my license plate. Granted, I can’t really blame them since my plate looks like this:

But it weirded me out nonetheless.

After Mount Rushmore, we hit Wyoming for a few miles which, like most of the rest of our road trip, ended up being a few miles of pure road construction.

When we hit Montana, it was pretty much no cell reception for the whole state. We managed to hit the state right at sunset and were, again, impressed:

Then lots of hills, forest, and darkness all around. Hayley and I got pretty giddy in my car listening to Katy Perry and Lady GaGa since we were hungry and apparently a low blood-sugar makes us nuts. It only got worse when the only restaurant (term used loosely) was McDonalds and we cracked ourselves up waiting thirty minutes in the line (when people gave up Hayley commented that they “apparently don’t have what it takes for the McDonalds line!”) at the drive through.

After we had food in our systems, we lasted about another two hours before having to call it a night in a medium sized town half way through the state of Montana. We crashed hard that night with the goal and hope that tomorrow night? We’d be back in Washington and back home.