Hello, my lovelies!
I’m at a splendific campground in South Dakota. So, as you’d expect, this means the Great Trek of 2020 hit the road and went further west.
A twelve hour day of driving further west. Another time zone further west.
Oof.
Leaving Iowa
An observation about the county roads in Iowa: you’re driving through uninterrupted cornfields for so long that, whenever a stop sign is coming up, there are helpful (loud) rumble strips on the road to wake your bored ass up. I forgot that these are typical in the Midwest and onwards.
Starting when I got on I-35 and continuing onto I-90, the interstates on this drive were mostly pink. A bright, rosy pink. I’ve seen tan, grey, black, and sort of reddish. This was my first pepto bismol interstate.
Minnesota
I never actually stopped in this state, but at least now I’ve been there. I don’t think I’ve seen it to its full advantage, though. The first half of it on I-90 looks like Iowa, and the second half looks like South Dakota. None of those beautiful evergreens and lakes that I am informed one finds further north in the state put in an appearance.
Minnesota was extremely windy. It must be like that on most days, because there were windmills and windmill farms everywhere.
*yawn*
Entering South Dakota
The speed limit on the interstate here is 80 mph.
No, I’m not mixing up the interstate signs and the speed limits signs again, I swear.
I-90 crosses the Missouri River in SD, or, more accurately, a dammed up part of the river that forms Lake Francis Case. You get across this big water and then you’re in pretty rolling hills.
And then you’re in the prairie.
This seems an odd observation, but South Dakota smells absolutely wonderful. It’s like brown sugar with walnut, baking up in something tasty. I suppose this must be the prairie grasses?
If they could only turn it into a scented candle…. or a dessert…..
Around exit 241, there’s a sunflower farm- miles and miles of sunflowers that happened to be in bloom when I drove by. It was glorious and very yellow.
Also around exit 241, many of the exit signs stop containing any information other than the exit numbers. You know how most US interstate exits tell you the street name, or the nearest town, or the highway number you’ll be exiting to?
Yeah. Apparently in SD they just build exits for the sake of building exits when they get so bored from not having built any exits they can’t stand it any more. The exits don’t seem to lead anywhere.
Oh, and the interstate must get shut down pretty regularly in the wintertime, I guess; every so often, there was a sign declaring, “Interstate closed when lights flashing. Exit 1/2 mile ahead.” Huh.
Speaking of inclement weather, wow, did I drive through the mother of all thunderstorms in SD. Near white-out conditions, but from rain. Definitely a worse storm than I drove through by Buffalo, NY, and I think it more or less tied the worst storm I experienced in Louisiana.
It’s different approaching a thunderstorm in the interstate in SD. There is not a damn thing ahead of you except prairie and sky. You see the clouds rolling in. You see the sheets of rain coming towards you. You see the lighting flash (what awe-inspiring lightning flashes!) from all the way up in the cloud to down where it strikes the earth. The lightning looked rather purple. No trees or buildings get in the way.
There is a sense of vastness in this land that the previous states just did not possess.
Base camp in SD (for now)
It was time for a luxurious stay on the Great Trek. I pulled in at the Badlands KOA.
This klassy kampground has wallpaper in the bathroom. Wallpaper!
Do you have any idea what a step up this is from the previous bathrooms I’ve been using at campgrounds???
When I got in after 12 hours of driving, I was so excited by the sight of their laundry machines that I stayed up until midnight doing laundry.
I was out of underwear. And clean shirts. And had one pair of bottoms left. Oh, and there was a dead daddy longlegs in my bedding.
There is a pool! And wifi! And an electrical outlet! Such sinful luxury! And, unlike all the other campgrounds around the Badlands that I could find, trees!
The owner is a lovely gentleman named Bob, who tells me he is operating at over 100% capacity- lots of folks taking up RVing and tenting these days, what with the plague ruining other sorts of summer plans. This time of year, he’s usually operating about 70% full on the average night.
This is the magnificent, brave, loyal, dependable blue machine that makes the entire Great Trek of 2020 possible. Parker, pictured above at our current campsite, makes me feel all manner of warm and fuzzy feelings whenever I see her. There may be other trucks out on the road, but none of them are as well loved as she is. We are enjoying driving around the steep and curvy Badlands Scenic Route immensely.