Road trip report: 5,000 miles solo in a Miata, NY to MT/WY/SD (and everything in between)

I just returned from a long-sought solo road trip, and I figured it might be of interest here, so I'll write a bit, as well as posting some photos.

Basically, I had two weeks, a general idea of what I wanted to see, and a Miata RF. It took two days on each end to reach the Mississippi River, which was my symbolic boundary between normal (east) and new (west). Though I've traveled a fair bit in the West before, I've always flown close to my destination. I've always wanted to see the country unfold in front of me, and this was my chance.

I'm still sort of processing the whole experience, so this will likely be a slightly disjointed, occasionally stream-of-consciousness sort of a thing, but in the meantime I can at least report on the car and show some pictures. The Miata (2021 ND RF GT 6spd) did very well. Just before I left, I installed a set of FM sway bars, which should frankly be mandatory on these cars; I knew they rolled a lot from the factory, but with the FM bars in I realized just how much. On full stiff they make the car feel a lot closer to what it should. Other than that, it's stock. Aside from needing to move my legs from time to time (cruise control to the rescue), the car was pretty comfortable, and I did numerous 500 mile days without any serious issues. Importantly, given current gas prices, I saw a trip average of 37.9mpg, with a best tank of 41.5 (pure highway in flat areas). I really have no complaints about the car at all; sure, it's not an ideal highway cruiser, but it didn't bother me enough to notice. Most of the time was spent with the top closed, as I was in the middle of a huge heat dome that saw temps over 100F for days on end, but it was nice to have the option to open it when the scenery called for it.

Anyway, here's a few more photos. I'll write a little more as it comes to me.

Awesome!  I have done a few road trips over the years and always enjoy them.  Great mpg and photos!

I hope to see more photos! I drove the entirety of I94 westbound back in 1999. In a Neon sport with some ACR parts on it. I was supposed to go all the way to Seattle but started to get a flu and so had to pause then cut it short and came back East on I80. 

No digital pics back then but got some nice views in my brain of "Big Sky", empty freeway, long trains, and interesting mega truckstops, and a super cool diner in a logging town.  

So let's start at the beginning. I left NY with the intention of making it across the Mississippi in two days, which I managed to accomplish, arriving in Iowa at the end of Day Two. After that, my loose plan was to get to Mt. Rushmore and the Little Bighorn battlefield, and to see what I could see in the general vicinity before I had to start heading back east.

I don't have a lot of photos from the first few days - I was intent on covering ground, not documenting it. I stayed in a cool old motel in Ohio (the trains go by so often you won't even notice). Iowa was more interesting and less flat than expected. It's actually fairly picturesque, in a bucolic rural sort of way. Other than that, it was just a lot of miles on the highway, dodging trucks and looking forward to getting west.

I headed into Nebraska, intent on breaking off the interstate at North Platte and working my way up the Platte River. North Platte was the first of many towns and cities I encountered that seemed strangely devoid of people. I don't know if this was just my timing, or the reality of smaller population centers in the middle of the country, but it was both odd and refreshing (coming from the overpopulated Northeast).

I worked my way up to Scottsbluff, an interesting rock formation that was along the Oregon Trail. I did not die of dysentery along the way, for those of a certain age who might be wondering. Annoyingly, I missed the Guernsey Ruts and Register Rock, but I did stop at Fort Laramie on my way north and west. The Platte River valley was clearly an important component of the route west, and of exactly the sort of historical relevance I was interested in experiencing. It was fascinating to think about how both of these sites would have appeared to the migrants moving west along the trail amid a harsh and alien landscape.

More to come....

My first drive in my 90 Miata was Tampa FL to Devil's tower WY. Flyover states are the best driving states.

Fantastic. You saw some of the best sights in the country. I was lucky enough to get sent out in that area for work, and i ALWAYS made sure i had some time to go explore.  I bet it was a blast in a tight miata. 

I've driven out west from Chicago many times.  The first time was in 1980 and I had this album on an 8-track tape and for some reason these trips always trigger this song in my head......."they were hiding behind haybales".....

A branch of in-laws still out in Iowa and growing up in the foothills of the blue ridge mountains can definitely see some familiarity to the landscapes, just lacking the mountains in the background. Been out there several times and took a train last year Chicago to Seattle. Totally see the appeal to visiting that part of the country. To do it in a Miata, you did it right!

Love the pics-is that a filter or...?

I remember many years ago visiting Yellowstone National Park, and as we were walking through the parking lot towards Old Faithful, saw a very attractive girl offloading  a pack from the trucklid of her Miata (I assume the trunk was already full). I got the definite impression that she was on her own and was very impressed by that. Good on her for deciding, who needs a guy, and heading off on a solo car odyssey.

I thought of doing that myself in Midlana, but all these "solo" car trips we see (I'm looking at you, Top Gear), we all know that they have an entire support team. Driving a Miata solo is a good compromise because if it breaks, it's pretty straightforward what to do, head to any repair shop. With a fully custom one-off, coasting to the side of the road could be the start of a completely different journey, and one that could many days to a trip. Whether that's a good thing depends upon one's character!

To the OP, any chance you got to see Ship Rock? It's an extremely impressive formation and from a distance, there's no question why it got its name. One can only wonder how many thousands of passersbys have gazed at it. It actually makes an appearance in one of Tom Hank's most recent movies, "Finch."

Thanks for all the comments. As to the questions, no Ship Rock on this trip - I've been to New Mexico, but never got that far west. I have a plan to do Monument Valley one of these days, and I'll probably wrap it into that trip. Most of the photos were taken with a Fuji X100F (there are a couple of phone pictures of dubious quality in there as well) and given a very gentle round of processing just to get the balance right. I also took a bunch of photos on film (TriX), but those haven't been developed yet, and I experimented with the still photo feature of the dashcam I installed; this was mostly a failure for a variety of reasons, but there were a few shots that were at least vaguely interesting, if of poor resolution.

I bought a classic Mini wagon sight unseen from a guy in Baltimore and drove it home to KC - 1100 miles in 2 days. Stopped overnight in Columbus Ohio to borrow a friend's shop to adjust the valves and carb, then drove home the rest of the way, all at 60-65 mph!

Don't be afraid to drive your cars guys! That's what they were made to do......

After arriving in Wyoming and getting settled, my first planned stop was to shoot up the road into Montana to visit the Little Bighorn battlefield, site of Custer's Last Stand. This was also the first day of the Yellowstone flooding and closure, so there were a lot of people who would have been in Yellowstone, but instead were jamming up the places I was (I never intended to go to Yellowstone, simply to avoid the crowds. Instead the crowds came to me.).

I've done quite a few battlefields, including some iconic ones (Normandy, Saratoga), and I have to say that the Little Bighorn is very well done and quite helpful in understanding the battle, as well as being powerful. I didn't have time to walk the whole site (it's four miles long) but the road is laid out in such a way that it follows the course of the battle pretty well (much like Saratoga). The open terrain, likely very much as it was in 1876, allows you to see how the fight evolved, and why it ended as it did. It's a tremendously evocative place, and it really was one of the highlights of the trip. Here's just a few photos.

Thank you for the update!

You had mentioned you were on a road trip. I've been waiting, and hoping for this thread.

Very cool. Thank you for sharing. I'd love to have a 911 for a couple of weeks to drive with the wife around. Looks like my sequoia will have to suffice. 

There are two main routes across the Bighorn Mountains, and I decided I wanted to cover them both. I was glad I did, as they are very different drives. I ran the southern route first, coming up from the south past the Badlands-like rock formations of Hell's Half-acre and the hot springs of Thermopolis, into the very small town of Ten Sleep, where I had a tasty lunch and, across the street at Dirty Sally's, a very well-made espresso (perhaps the biggest single surprise of whole trip). Fed and fueled, I headed up into the mountains and over the Powder River Pass. From very warm temperatures at the bottom, it dropped to 47F and very windy over the summit of the pass. Though I didn't know it at the time, this was nothing compared to what was to come along the northern road.

See that last photo in your post, that vista is what I remembered being in awe of. In my case it was clear but with few but decent sized puffy clouds. And their shadows seemed to crawl across the trees and fields in the distance. So cool. 

The northern route across the Bighorns is more open than the southern, especially at the higher elevations. The western section is the most rugged, descending through a steep cleft in the rocks, while the eastern slope opens more gradually from pine forest to the plains. I started in the east, with the idea of running the road to a lunch spot I'd selected on the other side, then turning around and doing it again in the opposite direction (one of the perks of doing this trip in a car that's fun to drive; I don't imagine too many RV drivers would have relished the prospect of doing it twice in a day). There is an alternate route I could have taken for part of the drive back, but it is longer and the timing didn't work out.

The run west was uneventful, with fairly nice weather all the way along, and just a few clouds building once I got down the western slope. As usual, there were numerous stops for photos, and I spotted moose on several occasions. I took my photos from a safe distance, but I saw a few Darwin Award candidates taking their lives in their hands by getting much to close to female moose with young ones. Traffic was pretty light, and there were plenty of passing zones to get around the campers and RVs. Once again, I patted myself on the back for installing the heavier sway bars before I left; with the stock ones this would have been a much less entertaining drive.

Lunch was tasty, and I climbed back into the car to head over the Bighorns one last time. The clouds had filled in, the temperature had dropped some, and there were a few spots of rain on the windshield, but it seemed to be just typical afternoon mountain showers. I stopped at Shell Falls, which is just at the beginning of the climb, for a few photos - that's when things started to get interesting. As I walked down to the viewing platform, it started to snow. It was clearly a squall, beginning suddenly, with wind swirling around in the canyon, blowing the snow in what seemed like several directions at once, in spite of the temperature still being in the upper 40s. This was mildly concerning, given the summer tires on the Miata, but nothing was sticking to the ground, so I headed up the road.

The higher I climbed, the colder it got, but the snow lifted and I relaxed a bit. I did a bit of hard braking in safe spots to test adhesion, which seemed fine. About halfway between the base and the summit at Granite Pass, I stopped at an overlook for another photo, and as I got out of the car I saw the next squall rolling in behind me, and it was coming fast (you can see it on the left in the photo below). The wind was blowing harder now (the ND RF is really surprisingly good in crosswinds, I discovered). I got my photos and jumped back in the car, but the squall was already on me. All the way up to the pass, the snow intensified and the temperature dropped. At its worst, visibility was probably less than a quarter mile, and the temperature fell as low as 34F. Thankfully, the snow never stuck the roads - probably warmed by the sun earlier - but the vegetation was coated with a layer of white by the time I crested the summit.

It started to abate as I descended, and by the time I got to Steamboat Point, it was sunny and warm again - got to love mountain weather. The rest of the drive was a pleasant relief from the temporary stress of driving through that squall, but in retrospect it was one of the most memorable bits of driving on a trip that included an awful lot of it. It would also be my last chance to get up into the high mountains on the trip, with South Dakota and the Black Hills next on the agenda.

In 1981 a friend and I decided to drive to California to Connecticut and back in less than 2 weeks.  Our ride was slightly more unwieldy than yours.  Everyone should do a trip like this once in their lives, preferably before you're addicted to arthritis medications, and carry an AARP card.  Looks like it was a fun trip.  Mine was made more memorable because I met my wife of 40 years for the first time when I got home.

I headed east toward South Dakota via Devil's Tower. I didn't get there as early as I'd hoped to, and between that and the closure of Yellowstone, it was mobbed. Parking is quite limited, but after circling twice I finally got a spot. The monument itself is impressive, as one would expect, but it was difficult to fully appreciate its natural beauty amid the throngs of people. I got my photos and got out.

I stayed in two places in the Black Hills, Custer and Lead. The former is, put simply, a tourist trap, like a number of towns in the area. But it is well-placed to access the park, so it was a useful spot. The next morning, not wanting to repeat the Devil's Tower experience, I left early for Mt. Rushmore. In this I succeeded, arriving early enough that the grounds crew was still doing their morning clean-up, and before almost anyone else. I was also happy to discover that the light was at a good angle for photography, so I walked the paths and took a bunch of photos without interruption. On may way out, I stopped an got a couple shots of the profile view as well.

The next couple of days were about driving the roads through the Black Hills. I did the Needles Highway and a few others, and even tried a few of the gravel roads. The latter got me some strange looks from the drivers of the side-by-sides and overlanding rigs; I was virtually the only actual car on those roads. It was nice to have the top open through the rock formations and the forests, offering a much more encompassing view than anyone with a hardtop could manage.

One of the unexpected moments came at one of the tunnels cut through the rock. I came upon it and saw the vehicle on the other side - which appeared to be a bus - waiting to let me though, so I darted in and out, then pulled off the road to get a couple more photos. But I was immediately distracted because I realized that the tunnel was just barely bus-sized, and the reason he let me through was that he had to do about a twelve-point repositioning maneuver before he could enter. If he wasn't dead-straight, he wasn't getting through. Eventually he ventured in, with a line of probably twenty cars now waiting behind him. He got maybe 50 feet in and stopped. The hazards came on. The engine revved. He was stuck. It took another few minutes of revving before he finally worked himself loose and made it through. It did not seem as though it would have been a pleasant experience for the riders.

On my way to Lead, I passed by the station used by the Black Hills Central Railroad. The train was just arriving, so I grabbed a few shots while they filled up the water tanks. #108 is a very interesting engine, and the trains were absolutely packed to capacity.

Lead, just up the road from Deadwood and Sturgis, neither one a stranger to mobs of tourists, is an old mining town clinging to the side of a mountain, and is not touristy at all. The remnants of an open-pit mining operation - at least I think they were remnants, as I saw no activity in the pit - were literally across the street from my hotel. It was mildly unnerving.

I'll wrap this up in another post or two covering the drive back east.

Thank you very much for all that you've shared so far. We're heading to Sturgis for the Saab Owners Convention in a couple of weeks, and I appreciate the preview of some of our planned stops. Beautiful photography as well.

Outstanding, and brings back memories of driving my NA cross country a couple of times.

But with much better pix.

I've been remiss in thanking everyone for their comments thus far - my apologies. Powar, if you have specific questions about that area, just let me know.

As I left the Black Hills, I had one more thing on my list: the Badlands. This worked out perfectly for the run back east, as it was just off the interstate and the road runs west-east through the park (well, the paved road - more on that in a minute), so I could drive through and still make some progress. As I approached the gate, I saw a number of vehicles pulled off to the side, and immediately realized that the occupants were out taking pictures of bison. These were the first bison I'd seen on the trip (in spite of plenty of warning signs in the Black Hills about staying away from them, suggesting there were some there), which was nice, but clearly the people who had gotten out of their RVs hadn't gotten the memo that you don't approach bison. I kept going so as to avoid being a material witness to some clueless tourist being gored and tossed in the air.

When I got into the park, I saw that most of the traffic was heading east on the paved road. Naturally, this made the gravel road running back to the west more appealing, so I took it. The road ran along the top of the plateau, and the terrain here was more grasslands than anything else, but you can see the badlands in the distance.

This road is a dead-end, so I turned around and headed back to pick up the paved road to the east. I had seen some more bison in the distance on my outbound leg, along with a whole bunch of fearless prairie dogs, but I was surprised to see this as I came around a small hillock.

Not wanting to become an unwilling participant in a viral video, I stayed in my car, slowly readied my camera, and waited. I kept the engine running, transmission in first gear, clutch in, ready to make a quick escape if necessary. The bison seemed quite unperturbed, which was good, given that it towered over the Miata. It strolled past, never even gave me a second look, and wandered off into the field to join its herd. I don't imagine I'll ever get closer to a bison without a fence between us. For the photographers, that's taken with a 35mm-equivalent lens, so it's close - probably not more than 15ft or so.

After that excitement, I hit the paved road, which takes you down into the badlands proper. The formations are quite stunning, with new variations appearing around each bend in the road. It would have been nice to have the top open, but given that I saw the highest temperature of the trip here (107F, according to the car), I decided that the air conditioning was not optional.

And with that, having hit all my primary objectives, I started back east in earnest. But there are still a few things to add, so I'll wind it up in the next post.