Great American Road Trip of 2025 - From Toronto to The Badlands

So far in life, my experience with exploring the United States has mainly been limited to Florida on March break vacations as a kid, and then the occasional trip to New York City, Chicago or Detroit. This all changed when in mid September Lily and I set off with our two dogs, our RAV4 on the way to her parents place in California! We wanted to enjoy our travel, see some sights but not dally too long!

Our first day we traveled from Toronto to Mackniaw City on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We stayed at a motel. The drive was pretty similar to a central Ontario drive (beautiful) and we were just beginning to see the changing of the colours! A common theme that develops even more and more across our trip is how we could have spent a week at each of our stops and still felt that there was more to see. I would love to spend more time in the Lake Michigan - Lake Superior area sometime.

The second day we drove to Minneapolis-St. Paul Minnesota to visit our friends who lived there. We were blown away by how beautiful St. Paul was! The lakes, the trees, the houses, the lack of traffic especially was refreshing compared to Toronto. If we aren't too scared off by the brutal winter it would be on our shortlist of where we could end up one day. We even got to tour our host's bee lab which gave me a new appreciation for bees, maybe one day I'll get into insects... 

Cooper, Cassie and their friend Ror enjoying the Mississippi River

 

Some fantastic pastries at 'Diane's Place' in Minneapolis

Nature wise everything was fairly similar to Ontario with American White Pelicans being one of the few 'new' species. however that was beginning to change as we left through the plains of Minnesota for South Dakota.

The first of MANY Wall Drug signs in South Dakota with a field of Sorghum in the background 

 It was a treat seeing 100s of Franklin's Gulls over the fields as we whizzed through the state. At stops now, Eastern Meadowlarks were replaced by their Western counterparts. Our stop that night was Badlands National Park which was an incredible sight! Camping with them in sight was a highlight of the trip, the campground being better than expected!

 

The Badlands!

 

 

Mountain Bluebird in the campground

 

That morning we also tried looking for a Burrowing Owl that would be a lifer for us and a cool bird to see. We pulled up an Ebird map of past sightings and drove down a side road. Lily found some mixed in with Meadowlarks and Prairie dogs which made for a great start to our day! This was also our first time seeing Prairie Dogs which were so adorable! Cooper and Cassie wanted to play with them but for the good of everyone they were on leash.

Burrowing Owl - Such a cool bird

 

Western Meadowlark and Prairie Dogs

Clay-Coloured Sparrow

We loaded up on some supplies at Wall Drug and continued westward!

Tourist Trapped!