½ tank #9

[A quick sidenote: I haven't been able to connect to the internet in a while, so I'm post a few updates from the past week or so, but all in one day. I also realized that I had numbered incorrectly, so that's fixed now too. That's all. Oh, and more pics are up if you go here.]

We traveled from North Dakota down to Lead, South Dakota Wednesday afternoon and were struck by a few changes. One was the scenery. At first the drive was very straight and flat, but it became beautiful once we got into the Black Hills forest. The other was the weather. It started out gray, but eventually became full on snowy. We saw (through the clouds) Devil’s Tower on the way as well, and that was kind of a marvel of nature.

We drove carefully to Lead through the new falling snow, and even arrived at our hostel a little earlier than we had planned. The hostel was ADORABLE! It was this older house with many rooms, a couple kitchens and a couple hang-out areas. And the woman who runs it, Joan, was super nice. She gave a discount on the room, too, since we couldn’t really afford the full cost. Both Hannah and I highly recommend it if you ever find yourself in South Dakota. Check it out: www.mainstreetmanorhostel.com.

Joan told us that she discovered the house when she was on a bicycle tour many years before, and she knew that Lead would be a perfect place to open a hostel.

That night we went to dinner at a little saloon down the street where we ended up being the only customers. We sat by the fire and ate some good food, including a wonderful chocolate cheesecake. Gary (see previous post) was our waiter and gave us some tips on when and how we should leave town the next morning.

God bless, over and out.
~Marissa