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Published: June 29th 2018
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We woke up to a stormy looking sky...really scary looking to our west and south. We got cleaned up and then prepared Mufasa to leave camp before having breakfast. It actually was quite nice having breakfast in our little cocoon as we had the windows open and thus had a nice comfortable breeze coming through the RV. We pulled out of camp at 9:30 and headed north towards Sioux Falls. As we headed north, we realized that we were pulling away from the Lewis and Clark Trail as the Missouri River was now further to our west. Our big shock of the morning was the fact that the speed limit on South Dakota Interstates is 80 MPH!!! Wowzer for sure!
Our drive this morning had some variations. We moved out of the Missouri River delta area into the wide open spaces of the prairie. At various times we drove through the gorgeous rolling small hills that bring to mind old western movies. Then we were back into flat plains or rolling farmland. Altogether, a delightful drive. We did have lots of heavy wind. John could feel the wind grab the sides of Mufasa periodically, which makes for a
little bit of tough driving.
We pulled into Sioux Falls at 11:15. This is the largest city in South Dakota. I saw our “sign of the day” while driving though. It said, “My train of thought often leaves the station before I do”. I resemble that! See the pictures below for another interesting saying I saw on a window in Sioux Falls!
We drove to Falls Park which lies on the Sioux River. It is a stunning park. The Sioux River rushes over spectacular quartzite rocks. The various views were breathtaking to say the least. I hope the pictures do this area justice.
Around 1:00 we were once again on the road. This time we hopped on I-90W and were officially heading due West into Big Sky country with huge views! Again we drove through farmland. This was a little more rolling than what we saw earlier today. The wind was still blowing hard so the grasses in the huge (to the horizon) fields looked like waves in the ocean. I love South Dakota!
We took a short side trip to Mitchell to see the famous Corn Palace.
It is in the process of being redone for this season, so it wasn’t completely covered with corn and vegetation as we have seen in the past. It is still impressive and we took a few pictures.
Driving westward we were soon once again in the vicinity of the Lewis and Clark Trail as we topped a plateau and saw the Missouri River spread out before us. We stopped for a few minutes at a welcome center/interpretive center to take in the views. As you will see from the pictures, there is a HUGE statue of a Native American woman that is titled “Destiny”. VERY impressive.
At 4:50 we pulled into Oasis Campground in Oacoma, SD. We stayed here once before during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally time when there were literally thousands of motorcycles heading to Sturgis. Looking out our front window I can see Cottonwood “cotton” blowing by so heavily that it actually looks like a light snow! Fun!
We are now in the process of running back and forth to the laundry room catching up of doing our laundry. A sad but necessary chore!
We drove
227 miles today.
PS—I added two pictures to yesterday’s blog post if you want to backtrack and see them. One is of an obelisk honoring Sargent Floyd’s death. Another is of our friend Carol waving good by to us yesterday.
PPS—We have had an exciting last couple of hours. A big breaker blew here in the campground and everything in half the park shut down electrically. We went ahead and did our laundry and are now waiting to see if the power goes back on. If not, we will have to move on. It is 90 degrees here!! Stay tuned tomorrow to see what happened!
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Lora Carbary
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Best pictures today
I loved the waterfall pictures they were fantastic. The statue picture very impressive. I never knew that there was a corn palace were those onions on the roof? Reminded me of St Petersburg churches and buildings. I think this will be an interesting trip. I think it is cooler here. I think you must have gotten electric back. Looking forward to each day events.