48 States

Before today's blog gets to its normal tone may I say YES it was wonderful, if challenging to Drew's ears, to holler as I got to my dream of visiting the 48 states. YIPPEE. 

Reaching the 48th State

At 10.36 am on Thursday the 15th of August I have achieved something I first planned in 2002, when Drew and I first visited the USA together. While the achievement is not something others might want to do, I feel so pleased to have done the 48. YIPPEE. 

The title of this post had to be the song 48 states by the Smalltown Poets, see lyrics. 

The day began at the Rodeway Inn, Watertown, SD. This was the first, and hopefully the last, Rodeway Inn at which we have stayed. My sister will understand if I say it was like an Econo Lodge, but even grimier. Worst still it was as expensive as some of the Comfort Inns we have visited this holiday. I'll add Rodeway Inns to the lists of 'never stay there' which previously only had Econo Lodge on it. 

As well as the grime, the hotel did not have internet access in the room, yet that had been part of the offer on their website. Time to write a letter of complaint I think. The reaction of the reception staff when this issue was raised was "there is nothing I can do about it as the maintenance man isn't here". Later when the maintenance man had arrived it was "strange that, it must have been the storm a few weeks ago that knocked it out. I'm not sure what I can do". Given the poor standard of the room and the lack of Internet we were tempted to check out and go to another hotel. But we had paid the $77.80, and my 'caution with money' overcame my need for wi-fi so we stayed. 

We got out of the hotel as soon as was reasonable this morning, having dried myself after my shower with a towel smaller than the average hand towel! The reasonable time being the time the McDonalds opposite opened i.e. 6.00 am

Over to Drew:

<<For breakfast, we had the sumptuous feast of a Sausage McMuffin with Egg (Co-Pilot) and Bacon, Cheese and Egg Bagel (Pilot). Co-Pilots Note: I'm sure we keenly await the etymological study as to the difference between the US (Sausage McMuffin with Egg) compared to the UK (Sausage and Egg McMuffin)>> 

McDonalds had very fast wi-fi, so I completed my latest blog post and uploaded the photos I'd not been able to upload last night. We had an extra coffee each while catching up with e-mail etc. Then we left McDonalds at 8.15. I'm surprised they hadn't charged us for rent not just for food and drink :-)

Having filled the car up at a nearby petrol station and headed up the I-29, if I didn't make it clear enough earlier, two hours later I drove across the state line into North Dakota making it to my 48th state - YIPPEE.