on the road again

yesterday, which feels like years ago, we headed north and then west after our fllw tour. while wisconsin is beautiful, it was somewhat obscured by the rain, so we just drove as fast as we could, weather permitting. when we passed over the mississippi river into minnesota, we were greeted by some very ominous looking clouds coming over the cliffs. however, once we crossed said cliffs, the sun somewhat magically came out, much to our relief. (the picture at top was taken at the minnesota welcome center). after a few more hours of driving we decided to spend the night in none other than...blue earth, minnesota. of course, it was still daylight when we pulled into our motel at 9:30, so night at that point was a bit of a stretch. at this point we had spent most of the last three days driving, so we were pretty wiped. and minnesota, at least the rural southern part we drove through, was not too terribly exciting--much like the parts of wisconsin we had seen, though still pretty. and for the record, i did enjoy the parts of minneapolis i got to see when i spent a weekend there a couple years ago.

when we woke up in the morning, we discovered that not only does blue earth claim to be the home of the ice cream sandwich, but it is also home to a 60+ foot tall green giant. no joke--that's him to the left. we stopped for a quick gander and then, once again, hit the road. pretty soon we passed into the land where i have decided that dreams come true--south dakota. a lot of my desire to go on this road trip in the first place originated with sd--the badlands, rushmore, the black hills, and north by northwest, the great hitchcock film. we pulled into the visitors center at the first rest stop, and were greeted by a giant tipi, as wiki tells me it is now spelled. we discovered later that many of south dakota's rest areas have them--i suppose that if tourism was one of your state's largest industries that you would play it up too.

one of the first things we ran into in south dakota was just as bizarre as the jolly green giant--a rather large sculpture garden just sitting off the side of i-90. we decided to explore further, having had a review in its favor given to us by the biker couple at the b&b back in wisconsin. this is what we found:
and yes, that is a giant bull's head in profile towards the back. we wandered around a little, but not too far because we didn't want to have to pay to enter. my favorite was this fish, which was on the drive up from the highway to the rest of the pieces. this sculpture garden was outside of mitchell, and in mitchell proper we saw the under-whelming corn palace, which is decorated with corn on the outside, and has murals made of corn on the inside. originally built in the late 19th century to try and draw more immigrants to populate the region, it is little more than a hokey tourist draw. and i say that while still appreciating the history behind it and that it is frequently used as the town convention center for community events and basketball games. oh well, there you go daddy. i saw lots of dead and dried corn.


needless to say, we did little but stop and see it and then move on. we made it as far as wall, south dakota, which is as far as we were aiming to get. wall is, of course, famous for its drug store. why is this store so famous you ask? because it is. in the early 20th century the owners of wall drug realized that they did not have enough customers to keep themselves afloat, so they started to give away ice water and plastered the roads leading to wall with signs advertising this. soon their operation expanded and it became famous simply for being famous. it now occupies an entire block and sells just about anything that can pass as touristy or drug store related. it also has a good bookstore, specializing in local books, and still sells coffee for just 5 cents and gives away ice water. while almost as hokey as the corn palace, i think that wall drug is still worth a stop. if you find yourself near here, grab a coffee and watch the locals eat breakfast in the cafe and enjoy the fantastic collection of western art on the walls.

we spent the night at the sunshine inn, a nice mom and pop run motel in wall, and recommend it if you happen to find yourself here. we prepared for our day in the badlands national park, which i was very, very excited about.
this morning we started out at wall drug, where we both had 5 cent coffee and delicious gigantic cinnamon rolls. you can tell that it is early in the morning because my eyes are still practically closed. from there we headed out to the minuteman national historic park, located just a few miles from wall. for those of you in need of a history lesson, the minuteman missile system was in place for over 30 years during the cold war, serving to deter the soviets from sending any missiles our way. each one had the power of 3/4 of all of the bombs used during world war two. the stations, like the one pictured below, were scattered all across the plains states. today, this one is preserved as a historic site. the missiles were of course underground, manned by two people at all times, ready to aim their missile at a moments notice--it could have been in moscow in only 30 minutes, hence the name of the missiles. people driving by probably just thought that it was part of a power station or something. it made me glad the cold war was over--but then, are we really any less paranoid about national security today? after a quick stop, though, we were on to the badlands!