John and I have researched and planned this trip for months.  John broke the trip down into a spread sheet covering three hour blocks of time.  But life is rarely that neat. In an attempt to cover as much territory as possible and to see as much as we can, we’ve veered a little off the schedule. “The Schedule” had us going to bed every night at 9.  If that doesn’t happen at home I am not sure why we ever thought that could happen on vacation. Each day as we approach the end, we are constantly tempted to do or see “one more thing”.  It doesn’t help that the sun out here doesn’t set until about 9:30 at night.  A fact that has left us scrambling for dinner on more than one occasion. Take Sundance….

We were already running late leaving South Dakota and heading in Wyoming.  We had hotel reservations in Gillette, WY.  We looked at a map and saw the town of Sundance on our route.  Excellent!  We’ll stop for a while, walk the main street and have dinner there.  It’s on our way, right?  And if Sundance is good enough for Robert Redford, it’s good enough for us.

Cue the music….

As we exit the highway we are greeted by a sign that points out that The Sundance Kid took his name from nearby Sundance Mountain. So far, so good.  We roll into town.  And then look for the town.  We have used Google to find a restaurant so we go in search of a meal.

Wait!  Something is wrong! This town is two blocks by two blocks!  No glitz, no glitter.  No open restaurants.  Four restaurants in town.  One is a Subway.  And they are ALL closed.  Scratching our heads, we head out of town.  But we need gas.  So we stop at the filling station.  It’s closed too.  Sundance rolls up the streets at 8 pm.  Hungry and tired we head to Gillette.  By the time we get there, there is nothing open but an Applebees.  So much for local flavor.

But we are puzzled. Sundance is internationally famous.  They have a film festival there.  How can this be?!  The answer is quite simple:  it isn’t.  If we’d researched a little further we’d have read that we were in the WRONG Sundance.  That one’s in Utah. The joke was on us.  And we laughed till I had tears in my eyes. But it’s easier to laugh when you’ve had dinner.