Day 16 - Green Beans and Corn, Missiles and Mountains

You're off to great places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, So... get on your way!

~~ Dr. Seuss

Trip Totals:

Walmart Trips Made:7

McDonald's Diet Cokes Drank:12

Horse Trailers Seen: 59 + 1 Horse Show

Itinerary Changes Made: 6

Times John Made Fun of Lauren's Navigation Abilities:5

Today's Itinerary: Austin, MN to Rapid City with Badlands National Park and Mt. Rushmore

Lessons Learned:
1.) Horse trailers everywhere, saw more today than all days previous combined.
2.) Wall Drug > Corn Palace
3.) Wall Drug's Marketing Department is a big fan of billboards
4.) Check for parades before visiting downtown on weekends

Today begins the marathon portion of the trip, with long mileage in the car. South Dakota I-90 will make your eyes cross, it is long straight and pretty much the same scenery the whole way. Thankfully we had a couple scheduled stops that broke up the distance.

Our first of those stops was Blue Earth, MN to see their Statue of the Jolly Green Giant.  So we took a couple quick photos and swung through McDonald's and it was back on the road. Next up was Mitchell, SD and the Corn Palace. Make note when visiting a downtown for the first time it is best apparently to check the parade schedule as downtown Mitchell was crazy. We happened to arrive while the Corn Palace Stampede Rodeo Parade was going on. So we had to navigate what we guesstimated was about 4 counties worth of people downtown to see the Corn Palace. After seeing it we both wished we could have spent that time elsewhere on the road trip.

Corn Palace

I-90 Scenic Overlook

We found another stamp for our passport of National Parks, Memorials and Historic Sites. This one just happened to be at the exit for the Badlands National Park. Got to learn a little bit about the United States' nuclear weapon arsenal that hides under the plains of South Dakota.

What was scheduled just to be a drive thru park visit with 30 minutes extra for a couple select photo stops, turned into a 2 hour photo shoot.  The following are just the panoramic photos we took, they don't include the other 200+ photos that Lauren was taking out of the passenger seat or during our stops at the overlooks.

Badlands National Park

Badlands National Park

Badlands National Park

We made a quick stop at Wall Drug Store, this is where we really would have liked to have that time back from the Corn Palace, we really didn't get to explore as much as we would have liked. I did get to see the animatronic T-Rex. We basically ate and had a bathroom break before hitting the road to Mt. Rushmore.

Wall Drug Store in Wall, SD

On the way to Mt. Rushmore we got to drive though a fun town Keystone, SD it looks like a really fun place to stay if you were planning on doing some hiking in the Black Hills around Mt. Rushmore.

Keystone, SD near Mt. Rushmore

We reached Mt. Rushmore just in time before the sun was going to cause problems with picture taking, they aren't as good as they could have been but they turned out pretty good. Unlike Badlands this scenic view didn't hold Lauren's attention for very long. After Mt. Rushmore we enjoyed a fun dinner with Lauren's cousin Meghan, her husband and kids.  It was nice to have a relaxing dinner with fun conversation.