A long road day, with a new state.  We left St Croix Falls at 5:45 this morning.  Sarah said that the dogs would let her know when we were up and about.  Terrible watch dogs, to the point that I came into the house to shower, I went outside, and then we both came inside to see if Sarah was up to say goodbye.  Not a peep was heard from the dogs.  We ended up leaving a note, but felt like we were skipping out on her.  Allen had left for work around 5:30, so we weren't the first up in the house. 

We drove to Bloomington MN and stopped at the Mall Of America, did some mall walking in honor of George.  Our Grandneighbor would have loved the center of the mall, because Nickelodien has taken it over and there are all sorts of little people rides plus a huge Dora the Explorer section.  We didn't think to bring the camera in for our MOA walking, so there aren't any pictures from us.

We then had to head south on I-35 to pick up west bound I-90.  The only thing really remarkable about Minnesota, was there were a lot of very tall wind mills and it was very very windy.  There were lots of red barns that got me to thinking...Why are barns traditionally painted red?  After several hours, we crossed into South Dakota, our first new state.  In Mitchell SD, we stopped at the world famous "Corn Palace"  www.cornpalace.org  We went to see it, because it was on the way and Mom had asked me if we were going to stop.  Been there done that, back on the road again.
 

We drove across the plains in South Dakota and were buffeted by the plains winds.  As we drove west, the land started having rolling prairie.  It was very easy to imagine bison grazing the prairie, although now the land is the north corn belt.  We arrived at Badlands National Park after driving over 500 miles today.  I drove one shift and the RV is tricky to keep on the road because it always seemed we were going into either a head wind or cross wind.  Our diesel mileage took a hit too.  Roger was annoyed that diesel cost $4.35 in Interior, but they were the only diesel in town (?).  The town sign said Interior  Pop. 67.   We passed 4000 miles today, only 11,000 to go.