Courtyard by Marriott Sioux Falls

... 30 metres in front. The roads here have no side guide posts se it is difficult to tell which way the road turns. As well as this we still have the traffic coming and I'm sure these people are used to these conditions by the speed that they are traveling.

We come into a town and find a McDonalds. This is the first one we have entered. And yes kids the menu is different we choose a big breakfast of eggs hash brown biscuits and ...

... and it went bankrupt. Two additional owners failed at the same thing. My brain was tired enough to gleefully say to myself “Citizen foils Banker” and chuckle. I later realized that a lot investors probably got hurt as well, thinking the bank knew what it was doing. Hum!
On the way out of downtown, I passed a large quartzite building title “Minnehaha County Admin”. That did make me chuckle. Oh... Ashley. I am feeling as one with Steinbeck. Thanks.

Charlie and I began the drive through the Badlands with mouths gaping. How did anyone ever figure their way through this land. It must be full of skeletal remains. Well, turns out there were some to see. A wooden walk through a "fossil bed" appeared and we stopped. I expected to see fossils in the cracked dried mud, but they were encased in plastic topped boxes. Many signs warning "Rattlers" so we didn't step off .

The next ...

A stop over in this small town after a long day.

We called into Cracker Barrel for a meal before heading for the Holiday Inn. This was the first time visiting Cracker Barrel despite our number of trips to the US in the past. Shame really as the meal was good. It's an early start tomorrow.

Chicago tomorrow

We entered Sioux Falls around 4pm. It was hot and stuffy when we arrived so after setting up our motor home we went straight to the pool, only to discover that it was completely covered in leaves. it looked as though no one had swam in it in a while. But as we found out its going to take allot more than leaves to stop the pringles from swimming. So we went in anyways. Morgan so ...

... the bones of nearly 60 mammoths, and they have another 45 feet of depth to study. It was great to be able to see these actual remains and learn about the process used to uncover and study them.

After Hot Springs, we drove 6 hours through the badlands to Sioux Falls. It had to be one of our longest drives through vast, bland landscape! Tomorrow we travel to our final destination, as chosen by the girls, the Mall of America. What a way to end this incredible journey!

From Indianapolis we headed to South Dakota passing signs for 'Wall Drug' for miles along the interstate?! We spent the evening with Pam & Matt in Sioux Falls.




We had planned to go to a baseball game for the evening and we arrived eagerly a little while before the game started. As we had tickets that included ...

... several small towns. Seems that every small town in the Midwest has a Veteran’s memorial. I think that is pretty cool.

Traveled up through Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, and Minnesota to get to Pipestone National Monument. This is a small quarry where the Native Americans would come to get stone to make pipes out of, most famously the peace pipe. Pretty neat ...

... to the KOA Sioux Falls-site of night one RV camping 21 days ago. Tomorrow we have about a four hour drive home. The kids had a blast swimming, having water balloon fights and making crafts. Jack is just about swimming. The scary part is... he thinks he can swim laps around the pool. My time of reading by the pool is slowly escaping yet once again. It was nice, while the ...

... update so hopefully things will be someone "modern". They charge $32.00 (US) as a tax to get out of the country. I'm sure there are plenty of people dying to pay it just to get out! But then they charge $5.00 (US) to get into the country. What's with that. Watching Hurricane Wilma to see where it hits. HOpefully it will drift out to sea and be gone. Happy Trails!