T and I have finally crossed over the Mississippi River! We started out from Madison this morning and took beautiful route 12 through miles of dairy farms. T saw his first truck full of pigs with their snouts sticking out of the holes on the sides of the trailer (cute and funny, but we try not to think about where they may be heading). Of course, we stopped to buy cheese and a Wisconsin micro brew that we had at UW last night.
We crossed into Minnesota (and over the Mississippi) around lunch time. There are so many fields of corn, it's no wonder the gas here is 10% ethanol! The scenery is absolutely beautiful. We also drove past a few wind farms with massive wind turbines as far as the eye can see.
Shortly after getting into South Dakota, T and I could not resist following the billboards boasting the world's only Corn Palace! It is, literally, a huge building made of corn (at least the facade)! I say again...we're not in Boston any more! Unfortunately, it was closed (since it was after 5), but we were still glad to get off the highway to see it! LOL. After dinner, we drove a couple of hours further into Murdo, SD, where we're staying tonight. We clocked about 650 miles today, thanks largely to the 70-75 mph speed limits! The last 50-or-so miles were done at night, and the stars were brighter than we've ever seen them.
Update: the weather dips into the low 40's this time of year, so we have avoided camping (we didn't bring any items to get through cold nights). I'm hoping that it's a bit warmer as we head south so that we can camp at some point. T has pretty much thrown in the camping towel, but I am still pushing to camp before we get to Phoenix!
Tomorrow we will go to Mt. Rushmore in the morning and then head into Wyoming. Our aggressive goal is to make it to Denver tomorrow night. At the least, we hope to make it to Cheyenne.
