June 24, 2007

Despite the fun the day before, we were on the road at 7:30am on the way towards South Dakota.We drove the first couple of hours in very dense fog, only able to see about ten or twenty yards in front of us.Just before the fog began to lift, we found ourselves driving through fields with massive windmills in either direction.The first several windmills were so enormous, that with the fog so close to the ground, we could only see the blade closest to the ground.It seemed as if a massive disembodied piece of metal was just dropping down from the sky every few seconds.Anyway, go Iowa and its renewable energy sources!

After crossing over into South Dakota, we headed west towards the Bad Lands with a stop in Mitchell, South Dakota to check out the famous corn palace.We resisted the impulse to think "shucks" that it wasn't quite finished, but some of the pictures of palaces past were impressive, and so we won't make any other corn-related jokes here.There wasn't honestly much else going on in Mitchell, and it appears that the traffic in the city has decreased to the point that Mitchell can no longer support a stand-alone cheese retailer, as a sign at the former sight of the Cheese Shop read "Need Cheese?, Call this number" with an attached phone number.

Our drive across South Dakota was notable only for the incredible number of advertisements for Wall Drug, the blazing heat, and the amazingly strong and ceaseless wind.Surprisingly, we didn't see any wind farms in South Dakota, so clearly this state needs to get with the program.When we finally reached the Badlands National Park, we got enough views and scenic overlook to make the whole day worthwhile.Oh, and Wall Drug?we felt compelled to stop after being entertained by the signs all afternoon, and we had some ice cream (decent) and tried their famous (seriously) free ice water.Bethany thought it tasted funny and I thought it smelled strongly of ground beef.Maybe that's a local thing?

The drive to our campground near Mt. Rushmore was highlighted by a spectacular lightning storm, and unlike the day before, the bad weather stayed mostly towards the horizon, so we were able to make good time.A couple of miles away from our campground, we rounded a bend on the road, and suddenly the enormous stone heads of Mt. Rushmore appeared.We stopped in a couple of places to take pictures on the way to the campground, and now I think we are going to save the eight bucks and not actually enter the park itself.

We're typing up the blog for today on the porch swing of our KOA "Kamping Kabin" and we're not exactly roughing it just yet.We plan to hit the $2.50 all-you-can-eat pancakes in the campground's outdoor kitchen tomorrow morning, but unfortunately we won't have time to take in all the amenities and sights that the campground offers, like the hot tub, the "main street" shops, the lounge, the nightly live music nor the arts and craft lessons.Like I said, we didn't claim we were roughing it tonight.