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[Judge]

Just wrapped up two days of relatively uneventful driving. I was surprised the traffic wasn't quite as bad as I was hearing from people.... and part of that I think was the route I took.

On Tuesday we drove 662 miles from the KOA Resort in Nashville to the Cracker Barrel in Wisconsin Dells. Actual drive time was 10 hours with about an hour of stopping for lunch, fuel and dog walks. We left Nashville at 8:00am and got to Wisconsin Dells at 7:00pm. It was a hot drive..... the temp read 94 on the dash for the first 8 hours of the drive until we hit some rain in Wisconsin.

Construction and traffic wasn't too bad on I-24, I-57, I-39 and I-90/94. No long backups at all.... unlike I-80 as we passed over it in Illinois and saw bumper to bumper traffic in a construction zone. The Cracker Barrel was a good and easy quick stop over. There was only one other RV in the parking lot.

The Cracker Barrel opened at 7:00AM so we grabbed breakfast and the DW did some shopping in the country store to make sure we expressed our thanks for the overnight.

We then drove 642 miles to Bismark with about 9 1/2 hour of drive time and 10 1/2 hours total with stops. We left Wisconsin Dells at 8:15am and we got to the KOA in Bismark at 6:45PM. Again, traffic and construction wasn't horrible in terms of sitting in traffic. Construction on I-694 and I-94 outside of St Paul, MN was a little nasty with numerous lane shifts and very tight lanes in spots but traffic flowed. I was surprised how much traffic there was in that area during the middle of the day but it could have been much worse. Actually very little traffic across I-94 in North Dakota.

The KOA in Bismark is a decent campground and the price was right at ~$50/night for full hookups. Gravel pads that are very level with plenty of stone and hook-ups easily assessible. WiFi coverage seems very good so far. The DW had potato soup cooking in the crock pot during the drive so we setup camp, had a quick and easy dinner and then broke out the chairs for an after dinner cocktail to relax and then off to bed.

Woke up to some heavy rain and storms this morning..... but North Dakota needs it.... looked like a dust bowl in many places across I-94. We read the Dakotas are having one of its worse droughts in years. The good news is we finally found cooler temps..... 60's today..... and looks like we should be done with 90's during this trip.

Our plan today is to head to the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site about an hour north of Bismarck and then we booked a Lewis and Clark Sunset River Boat Cruise for this evening on the Missouri River. This is a quick stop over as we head to Medora, ND tomorrow and Teddy Roosevelt National Park for the weekend.

I'll post some pics of the CG and our travels today a little late.... at least once the rain moves out.