When I was planning our trip, everyone told me that I had to go see the Badlands.  I had heard of them, but really didn't know what they were or why they were so bad.  It sounded like something out of Mad Max, and to be honest, that's not so far from the truth.  Turns out, the Badlands were basically the bottom of a huge body of water that sat in the middle of North America for hundreds of thousands of years.  Receding water carved out these amazing rock formations  in the middle of nowhere, creating something that really needs to be seen to be experienced.

More photos of the Badlands here.

Ok, catching up... I posted the flat tire pic, and for those keeping up on Twitter, we did manage to get out of Sioux Falls, but I had some other pictures that I wanted to post.  Its a nice little town with a cute main street.

Thanks to the folks at Graham Tire for getting us back on the road!

Q: What did you do on your trip to Kansas City?

A: I bit the tail of the Royals mascot.

Today was a relatively easy day in St. Louis.  We have a very ambitious driving day tomorrow...  in fact, the next few days are going to be...  well, we'll stick with ambitious as the term.  Basically, by the end of Saturday, we'll find ourselves with Mere's family in Butte, Montana.

We did get to see the Arch, where I learned that my fear of heights isn't just about seeing the heights, but also feeling the ride up.  Elevators don't bother me too much, although they did in the WTC...  but the creaky tram system they've got up the Arch was a bit hairy for me.  What's bizzare is that they use the same pods on the tram as were used in the infamous Jeff Goldbloom movie, the Fly.

The small windows at the top of the Arch gave me at least a little bit of security. 

In the morning, there was a parade right outside our hotel.... very Middle America:

On our way out of St. Louis to KC, we stopped in the Dogtown neighborhood to meet up with fellow bloggers Matt Winn and Ashley Cecil.  Ashley's comments about the power of her blog in her career as (an artist interested in the non-profits) started a whole conversation about it afterwards between Mere and I which might lead to her blogging.  We'll see.  This has definitely been a great "people trip" for us... meeting up with old friends and new, family, analog friends and digital ones, too.

We decided to swing by Louisville to catch up with Rob from Businesspundit, who I had been reading and writing to for a few years and finally got to meet in person at SXSW.  We even got to meet Mrs. Businesspundit.  The Mays are a great couple and hopefully, we can take them out in NYC one day.

We didn't really think we'd spend much time in Louisville besides lunch, as we still had to head out to St. Louis.  However, we found a waterfront park that rented surrey bikes that sat you down side by side.

Hilarity ensued:

We got some ices.  The guy at the cart asked us if we had ever heard of "Italian Ices."  He then asked me if I had ever seen a purple spoon, which he handed me.

I wanted to ask him, "Have you ever seen...  anything outside of Louisville?"  :)

BTW... all of our trip pics are on Flickr, here.

And you can keep track of us in real time on Twitter, here.

The Jake is a fantastic place to watch a game.  The Indians beat up on the Rays, but the turning point of the game was Perez coming out of the pen for the Indians in the 7th with bases loaded and no outs with a 3-2 lead.  He got the first out by leaping about 4 feet in the air to snare a chopper back to the mound and throwing home...  finished off the inning 1-2-3...  amazing job.  I went to the game with Mere and my friend Meg from Fordham who graciously opened up her Euclid Heights apt couch to us. 

They're serious about their "I" logo...

Didn't even realize beforehand...  Fireworks night!   We watched from the parking lot roof standing up through the sunroof of the Tribeca.

...they've got undetectable radar technology, and lasers.  I-71 was crawling with cops.  This must be the state's main source of revenue.  Yes, that's right, frickin' lasers.  The cops stood on the side of the road with these laser rifle things pointed at us and our detector went nuts... "Laser alert!  Laser alert!"  It was like we were in Star Trek.

I used to have the original Test Drive for my PS/2...   Remember this image?

$135.   Oops.

Thankfully, from WikiAnswers, "New York and Colorado will not enter out of state speeding tickets at all unless they are serious violations like reckless."   

Good thing.  I don't need my insurance raised.

After the HOF, we drove a few more miles and stopped in Ithaca, NY at the Amazing Grace Bed and Breakfast.  Alicia was a wonderful host and if you stay, make sure she makes you some of her German bread.  May very well be the best bread I've ever had in my life.  The house has some neat grounds around it as well.  You're basically living in her house, though, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for young couples.  :)  Still, the tradeoff for that breakfast...   pretty close call.  (I'm going to get in trouble for that one.)

At the recommendation of Eric, we met up with Jofish while in Ithaca as well. 

Not only did that make for some interesting conversation, lucky for us, he insisted that we stop by one of Ithaca's waterfalls.   I'm so glad we did.  Check these out!

I'll catch up on Cleveland, Louisville and St. Louis next time...