RAMADA SIOUX CITY

Happy birthday Nick! 25 years young. Unfortunately on his birthday we had to drive 10 hours. We left at 11am to Warrensburg, MO to deliver our bunnies, Maggie and Sam to Kristin. She is a nice girl who responded to my craiglist ad to foster our bunnies. She has ...

Today we departed early from Chicago...a fine and sunny Chicago!...for Iowa. Pretty much a day of transition with a few surprises. The country side is wonderful to look at as it is full of corn and soy bean fields. We stopped mid morning in a place called Galena. Galena is like a time warp ...a better description is that it looks like a movie set with fake looking buildings but it is a real town. The historical significance is that the ...

... across South Dakota to our destination for the night, the North Sioux City KOA Kampground. On the way, Maggie pointed out that we were going right by the famous Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. It's listed in the book 1000 Places To See Before You Die. So of course, we had to stop. The local corn farmers have been decorating this with corn cobs and corn husks after the harvest each year since 1892.

... between Rapid City and Sioux Falls SD is like driving around Ritzville for 5 hours at 80 miles an hour. On the iPod: Not much of anything today...not sure why that is. Compensation for an oops: Bob got his photo take in front of a fake Mt. Rushmore at Wall Drug.

... I wasn't that impressed. And I walked out of the Mall of America empty handed. Yes, I didn't buy one thing. (Chris is now happy, knowing our bank account is safe.) Sioux City had a great little theatre. Actually, it wasn't little at all, but it was very quaint. Here is a picture of our dressing room. It was a great, full crowd. You could tell they really enjoyed the show. Too bad, the critique who was also there did not...

Day 17: Rapid City, SD to Sioux City, IA States covered: SD, IA (#17 of trip, #21 for Abby, #47 for Paul) Miles: 456 Highlights: Wall Drug, Cruising through the Badlands, Corn Palace Nat'l Park visits: Badlands National Park; Minuteman Missile Nat'l Historic Site Abby meltdowns: 1 when mom and dad stopped for too many pictures in Badlands Tumbleweeds in road successfully avoided: 1 Weather: Hot, but low 90's seem much cooler relative to yesterday. The rain that was ...

... left after an excellent zoo trip - way better than anything I've seen before. We nearly didn't go in as there were approx 2 million kids there, school buses, moms with strollers - the lot. Seems like it was a special day whereby loads of schools etc came to this zoo. We thought it would be packed but the place was HUGE. It had everything - giraffe, apes, lions, tigers, pumas, elephants, sea-lions, a monkey island, everything ...

Greetings from Omaha, It is a beautiful town here in Omaha. Everyone here are so friendly and warm. I had a wonderful stay here and I have learnt so much from my visit to Boystown Research Hospital. They are doing great stuff. I just got back from the hotel after the staff's Christmas party and it made me think a lot about the TPS staff and how much I miss working with everyone. I am so looking forward to seeing you all again. (I also have good ideas for next year's ...

... working at Wall Drug (the cafe is just her part time job, she usually works at Wall Drug) but she 'doesn't recommend' the 5 cent coffee. Hmmm...
After that we headed east on I-90 until we came to the city of Mitchell. I'm sure you've all heard of it, it's the home of the world's only Corn Palace!! Every year they redo the outside of the building with a different theme. The thing that caught my attention most about it was that there were TONS of birds all over the ...

... has expanded to be nearly mall-like-and they still give out free ice water. The place was very busy. Next we headed south of Wall to the Badlands National Park. The Badlands are a combination of the Painted Desert and grasslands. We saw lots of interesting sandstone formations and examples of some fossils from the area, but unfortunately we didn't see any wildlife other than some birds and prairie dogs. It was ...