Driving Day 4

Last night's hotel: Wingate by Wyndham, Fargo ND
Pros: Good breakfast, comfy beds, fridge and microwave, super nice people, cheap
cons: Kind of sucky water pressure

This was the second nicest place we've stayed so far, and it was half the price of the nicest (the Hampton Inn...somewhere?) so I'd say it was the best.  I can't get over how much nicer people are (and better drivers!) the further we travel.
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Today was the most exhausting day we've had.  It was 9 hours, like yesterday, but I think that's starting to wear on us.  It also doesn't help that today's states, North Dakota and Montana, are really big with verrrry spread apart towns, so it doesn't feel like we're making as much progress as we drive and stare at the same thing over and over again for hours.  We stopped for lunch in Bismarck, the smallest state capitol I've been in.  It was kind of weird, we'd gone hours without seeing any sign of life and then we crested a hill and BAM! a town appeared.

Both states are really beautiful, though, I will say that.  North Dakota had a ton of sunflower fields, plus the Painted Canyon which was REALLY cool, and Montana has all sorts of awesome mountains/cliffs/etc.  The day is sort of a blur because mostly we just saw cows and horses, but I do remember that Montana rest stops SUCK.  We started stopping at gas stations instead, which should tell you something.

Even Montana isn't sure they have rest areas.

A lot of bizarre things happened today:
- We saw a tire blow out on a truck right in front of us
- We saw a dead badger (I've never even seen a live one)
-  We saw an overturned, crushed tractor trailer on the side of the road, and some serious skid marks leading up to the crash

Now we're in our hotel in Billings (which is an even smaller town than I expected).  We have a short day planned tomorrow (5 hours!) so we can get some rest and not want to die, then it's 8 hours on Wednesday until we get to Seattle!  Our cubes, with all of our worldly possessions, are spending the night in Chicago and should catch up with us soon.  Wednesday we'll call and schedule the delivery; I'm glad we will have at least one full day of rest before unpacking!