Out of the Prairie and into MN

Sunday, July 22nd

This is what the corn is looking like in SD

 The sun didn't set until after 9 last night and I sat out until after 10, hating to go in even then.  It was a beautiful evening.  The air was gently moving, very warm but not hot and it seemed good to not have to put on a sweater after the sun went down.  The grasshoppers or cicadas were singing their hearts out or rubbing their wings to beat the band.  The conductor would stop them all at once for a moment of peace and then start the string section in slowly and quickly grow to a loud crescendo and play for awhile and then stop dead in their tracks again.

Sunset last night behind our campground

 Everyone e-mailed me to say I had to go to the Corn Palace since I was in Mitchell, SD.  I'd been when my family & I went cross country many years ago but I felt guilty just driving by so detoured and saw it again.  It's getting pretty professional looking and not as big as I remembered it but still quite an undertaking to every year re-do all the corn and related materials.

Drove past DeSmet, SD - home of Laura Ingalls Wilder which we visited on the same cross country trip and I believe saw an outdoor play there about her life.

 Then I was off to Sioux Falls, SD and decided I needed to see if there really were falls in Sioux Falls.  There were and a very nice park.  I can imagine in a year when it rains, these falls must really be magnificent.  I also was surprisingly treated to an air show going on overhead and all in 98 degree heat.

Entered MN about 2:30 on I-90.  I saw a sign that I-90 was the Eisenhower Highway which I think is the same designation given to the New York thruway or also I-90 except that in NY State you have to pay to drive on that highway.  I wonder if it's the only state to charge for the pleasure and I suppose that if I wanted to I could drive this highway all the way to Albany NY and beyond.

At the first rest stop in MN, the picnic shelters all faced the 5000 acres of corn (it looked better in MN than SD).  I guess MN thought picnickers needed entertainment while eating their lunch so they could watch the corn grow.  The rainmaker must have drawn a line between SD & MN because it did seem almost magical that the corn looked so much better just over the state line.

However, the farmers aren't quite as observant of state lines because even though I-90 is only about 10 miles north of Iowa, there's already miles and miles and miles and miles of corn.  Can't wait to drive into Iowa tomorrow.

DATA:

mileage:  176                            gas:  $56  @ $3.60                           campground:  $34

P.S.  I was informed this morning by the owner of Fam-e-ly Fun campground in Mitchell that it got to    

         103 yesterday, not 100 as I reported.  Today it probably came close to the 100 even here in 

         southern MN