Day 3

start odometer: 141,714
end odometer: 142,377
distance traveled: 663 miles

(yesterday was 527 miles, by the way)

Started at 7AM. The first thing I did was cross the Mississippi River. I drove across Minnesota and South Dakota. I am now at the Town House Motel in Rapid City, South Dakota. I am about thirty minutes from Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse. This is the cheapest motel in town, I think, and it is awesome. straight out of the sixties. I'll take a picture of it tomorrow and post it. I like it. Places like this make me hate chain businesses.

Today around noon I stopped in Mitchell, South Dakota and saw the Corn Palace. It is a 100 year old building that is somewhat of a civic center. The outside is decorated with hundreds of thousands of ears of corn. I've got a fact sheet on it, but I can't find the sheet, so a rough estimate will have to do.

Also, today I had my first misadventure. I locked my keys in the truck for the first time in at least ten years. Luckily, I had a good Dad who taught me all kinds of useful things, like putting a hide a key under the car/truck. The only really bad part was having to kneel in the Flying J truck stop parking lot in a puddle as it was raining.
And that's another thing. It started raining around 11AM and has yet to stop. I am deep in the Badlands right now, and I haven't even really seen them as it has been raining so hard I have had trouble seeing the road in front of me let alone any surrounding landscape.
I did take some pictures, though. Evidently, they are toying with windmills up here, and those things are HUGE. The blade diameter on them must be 200ft.


Tomorrow I don't drive a lot. I see Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse, and maybe I'll drive up to Sturgis as it's only 40 minutes away.

pics and video:









(yes, I did buy that "Floyd" pocket knife)