Austin MN - Fort Pierre SD, Day 3

Well day three got off to a wet and cold start.  We left Austin, MN around 10:30am CT with 178 miles to the state line.  Now we're talking! My excitement is building, I can't wait to see the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore and all the other things.  We stopped for gas and that is where I met Samantha, her husband and their two dogs. Of course I had to go and visit with the pups. They left Nevada yesterday and hitched a ride in a semi all the way into SW Minnesota on their way home to Winona MN.

Samantha and her two pups

Well what kind of gram would I be if I didn't stop in Blue Earth MN to get jiggy with the jolly Green Giant?  I will never look at a can of corn the same.  Oh by the way, I forgot to tell you, when we were in Austin MN, we were tempted to stop by the SPAM museum.  Hormell's headquarters are there and they want you to know that spam is a good thing. Well, I think the area around the Hormell HQ smelled, so no to the museum.



If you look real hard, you can just about make out Dave standing between Mr. Jolly's ankles.  From this point on, the weather slowly improved. It started to warm up and made for a more pleasant ride.



Our first view of the Missouri River! It was awesome to see. At this point, we are in South Dakota, about 100 miles into the bottom of the state, on I-90.

This is a dirt bridge. I don't know how else to describe it. We talked to a man that lives in SD and farms.  He said the Missouri is still overflowing it's banks farther down, in the center of the country.  SD had bad floods in the spring/early summer. There are used sandbags piled up in spots in the small town we are in tonight.



I must say, most of Minnesota and South Dakota that I've seen is flat and mile after mile of corn. The last 50 or so miles of our travels today, the corn was replaced by sorgum, I don't know what that is, but the farmer told us that they combine it and use it for feed or the taller sorgum they silate, something to do with the silo, like I should know! There were also fields of 3ft high sunflowers. They were on the downside, the funny thing was, we were traveling northerly and all of their backs were to us, they all faced east. The farmer said they also combine them for feed.



These two deer were outside our room having themselves a bite to eat.  A nice fitting scene!  Tomorrow starts the good times I do believe, we are headed for the Badlands!