World United States South Dakota Mitchell

Paulette and Rick's TripJournals Paulette & Rick - RV Summer 2007

Sioux Falls/Mitchell SD Jul 24, 2007

DAY 1

It is hot, hot, hot and very humid in South Dakota - 36C! We are staying at a KOA campground in Mitchell, SD, which is about 4 hours away from Mt. Rushmore. It's a nice, clean campground and luckily our site has nice shade trees. They also have a great outdoor swimming pool. That, plus a/c in the 5'er make it pretty comfortable here despite the heat - feels something like Phoenix! When we stepped out of the truck to register at the campground it was just like getting hit with the hot blast from a furnace!

Right after we checked in, early this afternoon and got setup, Paulette went right to the pool for a swim to cool off. As soon as she got back, I went for a swim while she gave Mo and Molly a cold bath with our outside shower on the 5th wheel. The swim sure helped to cool us off for a bit - but we found going for a dip about every hour was the only real way to stay comfortable - if we wanted to sit outside.

It was an easy drive here from Minneapolis as we left there about 7:30am. We stopped in Sioux Falls, SD for lunch and a 90 minute break before continuing on to Mitchell. One thing we noticed in driving across Minnesota was the miles and miles of cornfields - they are continuous and go on forever - most of the corn is not for eating, it is used to produce ethanol fuel for cars and trucks. It is sold at quite a few gas stations around here - 85% ethanol and 15% gas mixture. The farmers must be making a bundle on the corn because it looks like that's all they are growing.

We also passed De Smet, SD, the original homestead of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the author of Little House on the Prairie. It was another 35 miles off the freeway so we didn't go to see the museum etc. but Paulette would like to see it so we might try tomorrow depending on how things go around here.

After dinner, we took a drive into Mitchell, SD to have a look around. The downtown is pretty old and looks a bit run down. But, one of the tourist attractions is a place called 'The Corn Palace' - there were dozens of billboards promoting this place on the way to Mitchell. It's free to go in and have a look around, but we just decided to take a picture of it instead.

On the outskirts of Mitchell, there is a big WalMart Supercenter - that is probably why the downtown area is a bit shabby. There is also a small shopping mall across the street from the WalMart store. I think Paulette will probably check out both of those in the morning before it gets too hot around here.

We're in Mitchell for one more day before we head out to Mt. Rushmore on Thursday morning - we are both looking forward to that!

DAY 2

Another blistering hot day on the South Dakota prairie - 107 degrees Farenheit! And humid to boot! Today was just a day for us to relax, read and take a swim in the pool every hour or so to try and stay a bit cool. We also gave Mo and Molly a few outside showers to cool them off a bit - they both seemed to like that.

Tomorrow, we hear the temperatures are supposed to drop a bit and we might also have a few scattered thunderstorms. We've only had one thunderstorm so far, in Swift Current, SK, and that was in the middle of the night so I'm hoping to see at least once more before we leave here.

Tomorrow, we will be making our way to Mt. Rushmore - our main destination for this RV Trip. It promises to be very interesting as there is so much to see and do in the area. I'm sure our 4 night stay there will go by pretty fast. No pics today, but we will definitely be posting lot's more in the next few days.