South Dakota, midwest plains
Just south of central Dakota, it's the southern most of the Dakotas. Situated between nothing, and absolutely nothing, it is home to 4 things: Mt. Rushmore, Wall Drug, the badlands, and Sioux falls.
Mt. Rushmore, by far the most over-rated mountain-side rock carving in south western South Dakota.
We did however stumble upon a dinosaur park in nearby Rapid City, which may have been the highlight of the trip. Built over 50 years ago it houses life like sculptures of some pretty sweet prehistoric beasts.
Halfway between the only two cities in South Dakota is a town called "Wall Drug" There are as many home-made billboard advertisements for this town as there are inhabitants. Wall drug is to a town as a puddle is to a lake. Except imagine the puddle had some sort of weird chemicals in it. So we stopped in wall drug for a quick look around and some food. There isn't much more I can say about Wall Drug.
Just outside of Wall Drug is the badlands national park. The badlands are these strange formations of soft rock that poke out from the Dakotan plains. It was one of the stranger things we've seen thus far.
On our way out of the park the old GPS told us a quick way back to the interstate, which had us turn down a dirt road that had a sign posted which read "High clearance vehicles only". We proceeded down this road knowing that we didn't have a high clearance vehicle. Perhaps we were feeling a little bit over confident in the volvo. After traveling 20 minutes down this road it became apparent why it was intended for high clearance vehicles only. But with some strategic driving we were able to make it all the way to then end of the road, which was unfortunately in the middle of a prairie, and not the interstate.
So we made it all the way to the other side of South Dakota, to the huge metropolis known as Sioux Falls. Sioux Falls is the biggest city in South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming combined. And it has a population of 300,000! Our couch surfers for the evening were among our favorites from this trip. Two roomates Sarah and Sam, and there friends entertained us for the evening with their fun personalities, and their pet chickens.
The next morning it was time to get the hell out of South Dakota. On to the beautiful land of Minnesota. We drove 9 hours through corn and wheat farms to some nasty mosquito infested campground just outside Milwaukee WI. We braved rain and heat and mosquitos till dawn.
The next day a surprise awaited us in Milwaukee...
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