Day 18

Starting Point: La Crosse, WI
Ending Point: Wall, SD
Mileage: 950km (wow!)
Weather: Flippin' hot.  If we wanted fried eggs for breakfast, we could have done them on the dashboard of the car.  The thermometer in our car that measures the outside temperature reached 40C this afternoon. 
Accommodations: Best Western

John and I are pleased to inform you that there will be no corn shortage in the world this year.  We know this because we have seen all of the corn in the world with our own eyes on this trip.  And we know this despite having seen the Corn Palace (the world's only!) in Mitchell, SD, a structure that takes 200,000 bushels of  corn each year to construct.  You have now heard the most interesting thing there is to know about the Corn Palace.

Highlights of the day included a lunch-time stop in Sioux Falls at a picnic area by the falls themselves. Beautiful! And there was ice cream! Woohoo! This history of the falls is very interesting but there is a lot of evidence of failed industry including a flour mill, a prison quarry and a power generator.  In fact, the only industry that seems to have survived is the parks and recreation industry at the falls.  Sioux Falls, The Home of Big Ideas and Broken Dreams. (It's probably not that bad, but first impressions...)

South Dakota loves their billboards, especially those for the famous Wall Drugs, a 1930s family-run drug store that has expanded to a four-block souvenir, kitsch, art, western stuff and dinosaur store. Very amazing and very strange. 

We had planned to go all the way to Rapid City tonight but have changed our minds and are staying in Wall in order to take a detour through the badlands national park first thing tomorrow morning.  We've seen a few hints of what the landscape will look like and we're both excited for tomorrow!  Also on the list is Mount Rushmore and Deadwood.  Bring on the gift shops!