It begins properly on I-80 into Jersey from New York, into Ohio from Pennsylvania, into Illinois from Indiana. Chicago passes in the night, a sprawl of lights and eighteen wheeler rigs passing us by like demons on ungodly errands, a bump on an otherwise flat and endless landscape. We head north to Wisconsin, why? Because it’s there, and it is the Cheese capital of the free world. Wisconsin becomes Minnesota, the Land of Lakes (ponds interspersed by humps of dirt). So far it is a story writ in corn, cows, and tarmac. And it stays that way until we finally hit the foothills of the Rocky Mountains somewhere in South Dakota. First there is the South Dakota Badlands, a water etched landscape turned crusty like the overalls of an old forty-niner panning for one last nugget of gold.

Then The Black Hills, a moment to pay homage to a mountain scarred monument built by an itinerant madman (talk about turning mountains into mole hills), and a winding journey up and down the Bear Pass to Yellowstone National Park. From there (did it in five quick hours) to Washington through lovely, captivating Montana.