Current Location: Lake Mitchell Campground, Mitchell, South Dakota

We got up this morning with the sound of distant thunder in the background. Looking outside, we could see rain heading our way. The Weather Channel radar verified that we had until about 9:00 AM to get underway if we didn’t want a soggy departure (though it did storm off and on through the night). We rolled out of the campground a little before 9:00 AM and hopped on I-35 northbound.

As we got to the northern-most exit in Iowa on I-35, we stopped for a break at the rest area and browsed the gift shop. Iowa has about the nicest rest areas on the interstates that we’ve run across so far in our travels. We were impressed by the number of huge power generation windmills we saw through Iowa, Minnesota and especially in South Dakota.

Today, we traveled up to I-90 and headed west on it. We’ll be following I-90 all the way into the Seattle area. It was spitting rain off and on during the trip. There was a short period of headwind, but mostly it was blowing from the south and hitting us on the driver’s side. Fuel mileage improved to nearly normal today.

We decided to do a little easier drive today, since we are nearly a day ahead of schedule. Instead of pushing for Kennebec, SD, which was our original planned stop for tomorrow night, we stopped 100 miles east of that in Mitchell, SD. One reason was to check out the Corn Palace. Malcolm’s grandparents had visited it during some of their travels and Malcolm wanted to see it for himself. Might as well do a few sightseeing things while we’re traveling.

Site 0 (zero) in Lake Mitchell Campground

Once we parked the trailer in site #0 (zero) in the Lake Mitchell Campground, we headed out to eat dinner at The Depot. After that, we visited the Corn Palace and a candy store right  down the street (like we didn’t have enough candy already from Wakarusa). On the way back to the campground, we stopped by a grocery store and picked up a few needed items.

The Corn Palace

The Corn Palace is, essentially, an entertainment arena. The claim to fame is that each year the outside and inside murals are changed and decorated with corn cobs, grains and grasses. In the picture, above, the street beside it is blocked off because they are still working on some of this year’s murals down the side of the building.

Our license plate game didn’t garner as many hits today. I-35 and I-90 were not very busy. We didn’t have nearly as many people passing us, especially trucks. We got 24 out of 51 (including D.C.) plates today.

Today’s license plate wins

Tomorrow’s planned destination will probably be somewhere around Gillette, Wyoming, if not a little sooner. We are going to attempt to visit Mount Rushmore on the way through the area by just parking and visiting, if they have an available long vehicle space.