Blue Mounds and Driving

Today was a much better day than yesterday, mainly because the weather was beautiful and we didn't have to drive through Chicago again. We drove just about 600 miles through prairies, newly planted corn fields, and wind turbine farms. Not too many changes in the landscape once it turned to flat prairie, but really pretty. Every farm, and there were thousands of them sat in the middle of a huge field, but was surrounded by a good sized grouping of trees. Looking into the distance it was easy to tell where each homestead was because of the trees that were grouped together in the expansive prairie. Pretty cool.

We crossed both the Mississippi River and the Missouri river today. Take that Lewis and Clark - we did it in just ONE DAY! We win!

We've started seeing hundreds of Wall Drug billboards along the highway. Hundreds. Dad is sitting on his bed reading about all the cool stuff at Wall Drug now. Pizza parlor, old-fashioned soda fountain thing - he wants a chocolate malt shake or a root beer float. My favorite Lisa-Dad fight is the Wall Drug showdown of '97. Dad won that one - we drove on by. We're going this time. Meet you there, Lisa.

I drove the early (day) shift again, and Dad drove the evening (late night) shift. That seems to be our routine now. I'm happy with it. We're done with the big driving stretches for awhile now. We are 20 miles from the Badlands now and will go there tomorrow when it isn't the middle of the night. It'll be nice to have a break from these 600 mile driving days.

Weird fun fact: this is the second night in a row that our hotel room number has been 109. And we're 600 miles from our last hotel. I think once we start camping tomorrow night I will insist on camping at site 109. Dad says we won't have to insist on it, cause that's the one they'll give us anyway.

To break up the long drive we stopped at Blue Mounds State Park in Minnesota for a dinner picnic and walk. We picked up some food at Subway on the way. They had pizza there - so guess what I got!!! Dad got a boring turkey sub. At Blue Mounds we ate at a picnic table overlooking a little lake with a Canada Geese family with 3 little fuzzy babies.

Sirhc was with us all day for the drive and for the picnic. He really wanted some of my pizza. He even put on his cute face.


Just behind our picnic table was a herd of Bison. We took a walking trail to get a closer look at them. Dad counted 16 baby bison - also fuzzy little creatures. Well, not so little compared to the baby geese...but still.


Blue Mounds is known also for it's blue cliffs, which we also walked out to. Settlers in the 1860's and 1870's used the blue cliffs as a landmark. It's the only change in the landscape for many many miles.



So, we've stopped for the night in Kadoka, South Dakota. Our eyes are feeling pretty strained from all the driving, and it is too late to be setting up camp. We'll start the camping tomorrow when we meet up with Mary Ellen and Karen at the Badlands National Park. Yay!