Good morning in Deadwood, South Dakota...Here is the picture taken from our bedroom as we awoke on the morning of October 6th:
Yeah, that snow-covered lump in the parking lot is our faithful MPV.
Mary Frances and I were ready to get out of Dodge, or rather Deadwood. We thought we'd planned for everything, but we'd left our snow brush in the garage.
My two faithful traveling companions, MPV and MFH.
Snow in the mountains as we depart Deadwood:
A snowy hillside between Deadwood and Sturgis, South Dakota
As we reached the prairie shortly east of the Black Hills region, the weather ahead doesn't look very promising either:
Dark clouds ahead on Route 90 in western South Dakota
The silly little store on the prairie...
Dark skies or not, you can't help enjoy the drive for the first part of the way across South Dakota, if only for the hundreds of clever little billboards alerting you to the nearing of the one destination on earth a person simply can't afford to miss: Wall Drug. Who else would offer hot coffee to weary travelers for 5 cents a cup? And if the weary traveler is a veteran? Free. Who else would have a 180' dinosaur for you to take a picture of your kids with? Who else would have an entire rack of postcards featuring themselves as the premier destination in one of the most scenic areas in the United States? And have a built-in post office to send them from. And home-made fudge, home-made doughnuts, cowboy clothes, Black Hills gold, junk of any and all varieties.
One of the hundreds of Wall Drug billboards
At Wall Drug, just outside the Badlands, Mary Frances and I renewed acquaintances with friends we first met in 2005:
She hasn't aged a bit. Wish I could say the same.
Mary Frances' friend seems a little shy.
On to Nebraska...
The weather ahead still looked a bit dangerous, but for us it was time to get off the interstate, and turn south:
The prairie can be beautiful, too, even in the threat of a storm.
By the time we reached the middle of South Dakota, it was time to turn southward toward Nebraska, to visit our friends Rex and Cathy Bridgman and our special little friend Chick-a-Linda:
Chick-a-Linda, long-haired Chihuahua and Mexican jumping bean.
On to Iowa...
We enjoyed a most pleasant visit with our friends the Bridgmans (Cathy is a former FEMA employee whom Mary Frances had worked with; Rex is a veterinarian and rodeo calf-roper) and we were sorry to leave this morning, but the open road beckoned again, and before long we were in Iowa. Here's the sign for one community that goes into our Funny Names of USA Towns list:
Turn here for Beebeetown, Iowa
Beebeetown? I wonder what their high school football team is called; the air rifles?
Windmills along Interstate in Iowa
At last we reached our bed-for-the-night at the Fairfield Inn in Davenport, Iowa. We stopped by the Isle of Capri casino on a boat on the Mississippi for a little while, and left a modest amount of money there, and tomorrow we have a long drive to Columbus, Ohio, to visit our son Dana and his family there.
Our cross-America journey for 2009 is beginning to wind down.
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