Wall Drug

Hello from the Gold Standard of Tourist Traps, Wall Drug, in Wall, SD!  A truly phenomenal experience.  Plus they have wi-fi in the Prairie Food Parlor,  in the "backyard." (It's closed for the day -- no food service -- but the wi-fi still works fine.)   Now headed to Rapid City with hotel booked :-)

It's been a beautiful drive today through southern Minnesota and across South Dakota.  This is a beautiful country with very friendly people.  I stopped to see the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD -- that was interesting!  I never saw so many weird corn and popcorn products in one place!  Plus the Palace itself, with its motifs made from real corn and corn silks, was pretty amazing.  I didn't realize they do it over again each year, which made it that much more awesome.

Towards the end of the day, I began to be driving through the Badlands, which are quite beautiful, in a desolate and mysterious sort of way.   I'll try to post photos of this tomorrow as I didn't get any real good ones today. 
  

Minnesota!

Hi, all!  I've had so much going on (lots of driving and visiting) that I haven't had a chance to start this blog until now.  But hopefully I can keep it updated from now on so those of you who expressed interest in hearing about my trip can know where I am and enjoy the trip with me.  Feel free to comment, ask questions, etc.  (I will have my comment security settings rather high to avoid being spammed but if you post a comment it will show up within a day.)

So far I have traveled about 1630 miles.  I'm currently in Duluth, Minnesota, visiting folks here and basking in the mostly cool weather.  I've been staying with Katie and Bob -- this is the view out the window of the room I am staying in.  (Yes, that's Lake Superior in the back yard.  By the way, this house is for sale -- spread the word, it's a beautiful house due to a lot of sweat equity and superb decorating!) Yesterday we made a side trip to my father's hometown, Two Harbors, which is just up the road a little ways. It was great to be back there again.  In addition to walking around and seeing some of the new things they have done near the lighthouse, and visiting the Edna G. and so on, we spent some time in the archives room of the library, where they have the actual newspapers from the town for the past 100 years or so, and we looked for articles about my dad and his family.  I wish I had a week to explore them; I have been there one other time and found some really interesting stuff.  Yesterday's search didn't turn up much but it was fun to look through the papers anyhow. 

I'll have to work backwards in my posts, I guess -- I need to get on the road now for one last visit with folks here and then a visit to my mom's hometown, Pine City, on my way to the Twin Cities to visit friends and family there.