Driving East

We left Rapid City early on Sunday morning so that we’d have time to drive through the Badlands National Park.  What a neat place!  You’re driving along rolling prairies and suddenly, when you turn into the park, you’re at the top of a vast canyon.

Our first stop in the Badlands

Yellow mounds

Can you imagine trudging across the country in a covered wagon and coming upon this?!

The drive is 30 miles long and full of changing scenery.  I’m glad we got there early because by the time we reached the end it was really hot!

Moon setting over the Badlands

A curious goat says ‘hello’ to Grace

Okay!

The rest of the drive to Sioux Falls was long and boring.  We passed miles and miles of nothing but corn and soy fields broken up with a few sections of lovely sun flowers.  It’s nice to see beautiful farmland but it’s a little scary to see that there are only 3 cash crops.  Now I see why we are inundated with high fructose corn syrup, ethanol and corn-fed beef.  Where do all the soy beans go?

Our drive yesterday took us further east to Madison WI.  I have nothing notable to report other than Wisconsin has really bad drivers.  It’s funny how you notice things like that but once we crossed the border we saw so many stupid drivers and all had WI license plates.  Hmmmm…..

When we arrived at the hotel in Madison they didn’t have a clean room of the class I booked so we were upgraded to a small suite.  It was nice to have more room.  It was a nice hotel and we even got in the hot tub and pool after dinner!

Today was the longest drive so far.  There was a lot of construction and the drive through Chicago was harrowing.  We had planned to make it to Columbus OH but bailed out in Dayton.

I have to say that this part of the road trip is my least favorite.  I can’t wait to get to Baltimore and see our friends!