Day # 4 - Corn Palace & Wall Drug

We woke to yet more rain. Missy and I had agreed last night that we would not try to get up at the crack of dawn again to get on the road early. We decided we wanted to visit the “Corn Palace” in Mitchell, SD and since it is only about an hour away, we need to leave late enough to allow them to open before we arrived. So we decided to allow us and the kids to sleep in and give them a bath before we left. I had hopes of getting the right wheels bearings re-packed which I have yet to do (as you might remember reading from Day #1, the grease caps came off somewhere between home and New Castle, IN and the bearings were exposed to the elements for a short time) but the rain dashed those thoughts pretty quickly.

We made breakfast and got the kids all cleaned up. And the rain did stop around 9:00AM, but getting everything packed up and back inside the camper when it is wet takes a long time. So we didn’t leave the Sioux Falls campground until almost noon.

The Corn Palace in Mitchell is a hoot. It is a total tourist trap, but it is interesting and (excuse the mandatory pun) “corny” enough to be worth a stop. If you are not familiar with the Corn Palace, the outside is completely decorated in corn. Cobs, husks, the stringy stuff that grows out

of the top of the ear…all of it covers the outside of the building. And they have made murals depicting several national monuments out of different colored pieces of the before mentioned cobs, husks and all the other parts all over the walls of the building. I liked the “Statue of Liberty” but my favorite corn mural was actually inside. It was the corn Mount Rushmore! How can you not love a place with a mural of 4 dead presidents made of corn? After the requisite smashed pennies and plastic snow globes were acquired we had a lite lunch in the camper and headed west again.

The drive across the middle of South Dakota was long and rainy. Most of the time I was the only one awake. The scenery does get nicer as you get closer to the badlands, but for several hours it was just flat. The latest Stuart Woods book on tape made the drive bearable.

Having left Sioux Falls late, I really didn’t want to take and hour to make dinner in the camper on the road. Plus, enough people had mentioned stopping at Wall Drug in Wall, SD that we decided to have dinner there. We were concerned for a minute that we would not get there before they close at 9:00PM, but then we remembered we had crossed into Mountain Time half way through the state. We pulled in to the Wall Drug Mega-Complex at 7:45MST. Wall Drug must have long ago stopped being a drug store. Now it is a restaurant/gift shop/amusement park. Buffalo Burgers in the restaurant for Missy and I and buffalo hot dogs (oops, maybe I forgot to mention to Abby that she got a buffalo hotdog before she ate it) for Abby and AJ (Sarah preferred the chicken nuggets) was all good. And the homemade doughnuts for desert were great. After dinner were went out to the “Backyard” and played on the covered wagon and giant Jackalope. Then we again had to get the smashed pennies for the kids and mommy’s penny passport books and a couple of plastic snow globes for the girls and out into the drizzle we went for the last hour’s drive to the campground.

We got to the campground around 10:15 and were pleased to find someone still in the camp office. The sites here are large and the campground has lots of amenities. We set-up quickly and got the kids right to bed. All 3 were so tired that they went right to sleep. Missy and I were out about 10 minutes later.

Before this trip, I didn’t know anything about South Dakota. Now I have discovered what I believe is an important thing to know if you are planning a visit. The eastern border with Sioux Falls and Mitchell is very interesting. And the western border with Rapid City/Deadwood/Wall and Mount Rushmore looks very cool. But in the middle there is NOTHING! And I mean that quite literally. The exits off the interstate are few and the ones that are there often end on a gravel road. Yea…you read that right. The exit off the interstate is paved and ends at the end of the off ramp in…a dirt road. I have traveled the country extensively on business and this was a first for me.