DAY 5

Day 5

 

South Dakota, wow, what a beautiful day this has been. A storm blew through Sioux Falls last night. We woke this am to 68 degrees a light breeze out of the north and clear blue skies. The ride across I-90 was awesome, all 355 miles of it. The terrain starts off as nearly flat grass plains. As we traveled west it started rolling into gentle hills that grew into steep hills and deep valleys. As we approached Rapid City it became higher, rougher and bad. I guess that’s why they call them the Badlands.

 

South Dakota farm report; Kansas just lost its claim to the Sunflower State title,  all along I-90, both sides of the road from horizon to horizon all you can see are sunflowers, sunflowers and more sunflowers. Don’t know what they do with all those sunflower seeds.

 

Our first stop of the day was Mitchell, SD home of the “World’s only Corn Palace”. Every year the exterior and interior of the build is decorated with murals of maize. It’s an amazing thing to see and impossible to describe.

I ‘m not sure where the signs start in the east or where they end in the west but anyone traveling I-90 can’t miss the Wall Drug signs. So being in our tourist mode we stopped to see Wall Drug. It’s in Wall, SD and is Wall, SD. It’s the whole town! This day, like every other day I’m sure, the place was packed, tour buses galore. If you have ever seen Pedro’s South of the Border in Dillon, SC then you have an idea of what Wall Drug is like. We did not linger. It was a quick stop and shop, bought my t-shirt and we were gone. Would I go back, no? But we can say we have been there.

 

 

We are now settled in at the Alex Johnston Hotel in Rapid City, SD. It is a lovely old hotel that opened in 1928. We have a corner room on the sixth floor that over looks the city with the Black Hills in the background. Mt Rushmore is a half hour drive from here.