Woke to sunshine at 5:30AM. Packed, breakfast at hotel, stroll around the
grounds and on the road. Immediately
moving west Iowa has perfectly manicured and planted fields on rolling hills. The good news, they have adopted land
conservancy planting and land management.
The bad news, they cleared off the vast majority of their state’s trees
to do it. We pass the Bridges of Madison
County heritage area (famous movie) and the prairie winds are extremely strong and
the hundreds of giant wind turbines are turning with it. There is a terrible accident involving two
large travel trailers, we don’t know if the wind played a part. All of a sudden, the car in front of let loose
one of the hubcaps and it came rolling full speed toward our wind shield, but veered
off to one side thanks to wind. Lewis
and Clark Expedition is celebrated all along the areas that border the Missouri
River. When we cross into South Dakota it
is the triangle meeting of Neb, Iowa and South Dakota. We follow the Mo River at a distance driving through
the Mo River Valley, 100’s of miles of flat lands that seem to sit below sea
level, lots of crop farming. In Des
Moines, IA we are caught in a huge rain storm, so dense it was hard to see and
water built up on the road without time to run off. Later, out of the storm, we found out we had
missed a hail storm right ahead of us.
Entering South Dakota, the triangle there is IA, SD and Minnesota. South Dakota is a yawn scenery wise, so flat
you can see for miles and the road is straight and never varies. The soil is not quite as lush as IA and their
land management is not as tight controlled; it’s less about crops and more
about grazing beef cattle, lots of newborn calves running around. We saw only one patch of wind turbines. We pass by a sign citing Laura Ingalls Wilder’s
home. We stopped more times today to
stretch but still covered 547 miles.
Overnighting in Oacoma, SD on the banks of Lake Charles, caused by
damming the MO River, very beautiful area.
Go to Al’s Oasis down the street and served a great dinner, local beer
and homemade pie. Big day tomorrow will
pass through Wyoming and into Montana.
Our last day in the US. Grateful
for a safe day of driving. Time for
sleep. Nighty Night.
Total
Miles Driven today: 547
Total
Miles Driven: 1120
Other
Sights Today
