Minnesota to South Dakota

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Started the day on the road by reading to Fred the story of my cousin, George Adam Storz, who came from Tuttlingen to the Stonewall Valley in Colorado. I really want to go there and see that. He homesteaded there and, due to land grant problems, had to buy his land 3 times within 10 years. He established a mill, like his foretathers before him, and people came from far away to have their grain ground. The small book is called Valley of Lost Souls.

The road, route 90, is so flat and straight that we saw these awesome clouds that seemed to sit on the earth. Actually we were seeing the curvature of the earth that made the clouds seem that way. It was an eery and awesome site for us eastern mountainers. The cloud bank went for miles and miles. To our south was a very angry large cloud which did not bother us. Also saw tons of bikers returning from bike week at Sturgis, SD.

The land is very flat thru MN into SD with more corn and soy bean fields. Stopped at a tourist trap in Mitchell, The Corn Palace.

Funny little car in the parking lot.

The Palace just had some vendors and had murals made from corn. Fred took a liking to an Indian there. The outside is also decorated with corn. Someone was taking a picture of the Corn Palace with one of those ancient cameras with the black hood. >>

Met another travelling family who had arrived there before us from the east and went through a terrific rain/hail storm. Hail the size of golf balls. They pulled off the road and spoke with others who had hail damage. One person’s awning came unrolled and got pelted with hail and had holes. Another person’s solar panal on their roof got broken. We were only ½ hour behind them, lucky us!

The roads in this area where reddish, in the town and the 90. Dazy-D and Rosebud (the car) are having a wonderful time!

Crossed the Missouri river and the land became very moundy, not hilly, but moundy, very few trees. Pretty landscape><

There are more cattle ranches this side of the Missouri. Lots of grazing land but seeminly few cattle, free-range Angus. A very occasional house, some silos and lots of land. Every few miles or so we see a stand of bee hives. Quite lonely out here. Saw billboards for casinos, must be Indian ones. Haven’t seen any cities. Lots of signs for Wall Drug, but we will skip that, another tourist trap. An occasional little pond., lots of hay bales. More west, we heard, are sheep ranches. One ranch here said established 1890, not old at all in eastern terms.

Overnighted in Kennebec at a KOA. They had just a few sites, 2 cabins, and a teepee. The teepee had three bunks in it, perhaps they rented that out also. This campground is for sale.

Had Wi-Fi, finally some email went out.