The long drive

We have gone a long way since I last posted. It is Sunday morning and we are in South Dakota just outside of Mount Rushmore.

After we left Corry, we drove to Elkhart Indiana.  We spent the night there and had late night hamburgers in a Midwestern hamburger chain called Steak and Shake.  They say that American towns all look the same--everyone has McDonald's, Applebee's and all of the other junk chains, but there are some regional differences and this place is one of them.  Good burgers and the skinniest french fries you've ever seen. One difference at Steak and Shake is table service and being open 24 hours.  The kids that work there, take your order and deliver to your table just like a proper restaurant. We rolled in about 11pm, so it was a late night crowd, mostly teenagers in to get some junk after a movie and other travelers getting some late night grub; not a lot of small kids.  Right after our food was delivered, some poor kid back in the kitchen dropped a tray of glassware and the sound of shattering glass was deafening.  Of course the whole restaurant started cheering and clapping, (the Cipollas were the loudest clappers and cheerers, I'll admit.) As the cheering died down, there was a sliver of silence before conversations picked back up, and in that tiny second, Marianne shouted out as loud as she could "You're FIRED!!" 

The next day we pulled out of Elkhart early because we had a LONG way to go. We made it as far as Rochester, Minnesota and we camped at a very nice campground there.  I had a chance to get a few things done in the morning before the kids woke up, then we got on the road. 

We went over the Missouri river and we were amazed to see that the river is still well flooded beyond its banks. I have never seen so much water in South Dakota, in addition to the river being flooded, all of the stock tanks on the ranches are overflowing with water, and there is water pooled in every imaginable place. If you were a crazy person you might think the inland sea was coming back.  The drive across South Dakota in the dark was amazing. There was a severe thunderstorm going on northwest of us and because it was the prairie, we had an amazing view of the lightening bolts for about an hour and a half.  It was the most amazing light show ever.  It was just Chris and I in the car that night and he is very vigilant about looking out for tornadoes, and he kept saying, "mom, that really looks like a funnel and it looks like it's moving." I had Chris get on the Weather Channel app on the iPhone and the severe weather alert didn't mention a tornado, but no sooner had he read me the alert then on the radio we get an emergency broadcast about high winds, quarter sized hail, life threatening lightening, and yep, you guessed it, tornado watch. Luckily for us, we were South enough of the storm system not to have to worry about it, because we were after all, trailing a tornado magnet on the back of Charlie's car.

Prairie Grass in Badlands. Photo taken by Marianne Cipolla.

Claire hiking in the Badlands. Photo taken by Charles Cipolla.

We spend the night in a town called Kadoka and we could see the effect of the rains on this prairie, it is verdant green out here.  Badlands looked all the more magnificent with the variegated rocks and the green prairie grasses. We are lucky we visited when we did, I would imagine in a dry year, the park would look very different.

Today our plan is to go to Mount Rushmore and I hope Wind Cave and maybe we will drop by Deadwood if we have a chance.  There is so much to see in this area.

We will likely be changing our travel plans a bit from here on out.  We were planning a trip to Yellowstone, but the fact is we are running out of time, we need to be in Phoenix in time to pick up keys, pay the rent and move in to the new house before Charlie has to go back to work. We are still hashing out what route we will take from here, but we are in Rapid City for at least one more night.

I am going to do a separate post on my thoughts about the farm belt, now that we've just driven through it a good portion of it. Keep an eye out out for it if you are interested in some thoughts about what is supposed to be the "breadbasket of the world."