It's not so bad

Today was one of the worst days on the road yet. It was one of those days that, no matter which way you looked, as far as the eye could see, the sky was grey. And not just any grey, but that socked in, here to stay for a few days, kind of grey. It didn't start off that badly though. After a wet night, we broke camp and headed to to see the Crazy Horse monument, which didn't look any closer to being finished than when I visited in 1992. We stopped in Custer for some sustenance and made a delightful discovery in the local bakery. The apple fritters they had there were the real thing, freshly deep fried dough with big chunks of apple. While I miss Tim Hortons dearly, this was several steps above. Graham was equally impressed with the chocolate chip cookie the size of a small frisbee. From Custer we headed north through Keystone which is like Deadwood on steroids, not so much with the gambling but with the wild west theme. From there it was back onto the I90, whcih disappeared into the grey mass to the east.

There was not much else to do but drive really, so drive we did. On through the badlands, which really didn't look that bad, more like the English countryside with green rolling hills. We drove passed the cheesy sounding Badlands Petrified Gardens, and unfortunately were too late for the prairie dog display in Fairmont.

South Dakota is the leading state for roadkill seen so far, or else they take longer to clean it up than the others. Billboards along the highway announced that "this is Graham country" and "I'm running on Biofuel", a particularly patriotic sign with a picture of the American flag and a footnote about reducing dependence on foreign oil. Perhaps they should add, "and starve them while we're at it". There is actually a lot more farmland to the east of the not-so-Badlands than I expected. It seemed we had finally found the southern equivalent to the Canadian Prairies, so perhaps it was a good day to just drive.

We made it as far as Clear Lake, Iowa, having crossed South Dakota, part of southern Minnesota (which will be the only state or province, other than Ontario, that we travel through twice) before heading south on the I35. It was still raining when we arrived so we checked into a motel for the night!

Quote of the day: "At least I'll be getting out of this place" Overheard in a gas station in Luverne a small farm town in the extreme south west corner of Minnesota.

Trip Facts:
Driven Today: 1,027 km
Driven in total: 10,533 km
Run today: 0 km
Run in Total: 128.6 km
Number of TH Stops: 16 :(
Number of Speeding tickets: 1
Number of nights camping: 5
No. of nights raining while camping: 4
Ipod progress: 881 Songs: Last "Living with War" Neil Young
Song of the Day: "What a Wonderful World" Louis Armstrong