You'll never believe it...we're alive

Where to begin. After Chicago, we made our way to Madison, Wisconsin. I am not sure what my expectations of Madison were but it is safe to say that I was pleasantly surprised. Madison was beautiful with bicycles everywhere, happy people, and cute stores. Madison is definitely a college party town, but in the summer it just seems like a quaint and down to earth place. We met up with our friend Zoe, who had just started what seems like a bomb job and landed a sick apartment. We ate some Thai food, and walked through the town. We were asked in Ohio whether our bus had politics, and so we decided to pick up some bumper stickers. Zoe is living in a old Church converted to a frat house. The stain glass was still intact, her room could lead to the bell tower (if you knocked down a wall), and what had once been the bath used for baptisms had (at one time) converted to a hot tub, she told us. Perfect blaspheme. We met up with Sean from Max's Israel trip. I think both of us were sad to leave the beautiful town of Madison--but we had to keep moving. Next Stop: South Dakota.

We had a long drive ahead of us. Max was a trooper and drove well into the night. There was a crazy lightning storm and "This American Life" that entertained us. As I was beginning to doze off in the passenger seat, I heard a loud pop and the felt a huge gust of wind. STOP, I yelled to Max. "We lost our window and no I am not kidding." At 4AM we were stopped on highway 90, searching in the grass for our window. We found it in relatively good condition, and went to the nearest rest stop to try to reset it. It was difficult to put the window back in because it was slightly bent, and in hindsight it probably wasn't properly put back in to begin with. We set it best we could, ad continued on. Not even ten minutes after getting back on the highway, I heard that same distinguished pop and without even saying anything, I felt Max put his foot on the breaks. He backtracked and watched in horror as a tractor/trailer demolished our window. It has been a very windy trip since. Max drove until he was tired, and I got up in the morning and continued the driving. We drove over 800 miles yesterday. We stopped at Al’s Oasis dude ranch/ salon for a bite to eat. It really feels like we are in the wild wild west. Max ate Buffalo for the first time, and I pet a dead one—they are very soft.

We decided to camp in the Badlands themselves which is positively one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. We started up our loud loud generator, and gave our bus some politics (that we had bought in Madison). I went on a little bike ride to see the views and climb some cool rocks, it was nice to be out of the bus for a few minutes. I met some guy with blonde dreds and a cool motorcycle, and we all hung out to watch the stars. His name was Pierre and was an experienced nomad. We fell asleep watching the craziest lighting storm I have ever seen. I thought our bus was going to blow away, but luckily it didn’t. Right now I am sitting in the visitors center of the Badlands. We are going to do a little more exploring and then take off. The itinerary for today includes: Wall Drug (cool signs), Mount Rushmore, and fixing our window. Until next time….