Catching up the lost time: From Minneapolis to Rapid City

Yesterday evening, I arrived in my room at 10 PM local time, which was not that bad, had I was not sill operating in Central Time standard, not to mention that I had been driving since 8:30 AM and this was the fourth hotel that I checked in, since all other three were fully booked. Damn tourist season. This, in turn, only allows me to write this blog this morning. Damn the internet connection too, this hotel's connection is very slow.... But well, beggars can't be chooser, especially when there's only few other hotels left....

Anyway, here's the map of my journey yesterday, from Minneapolis to Rapid City, passing several towns in the meantime.


So, my foot was feeling fine yesterday, so I decided to finally move along with this journey. While the foot is still kinda bothering me even today, it is not really that bad or that painful, I guess as long as I don't overuse it.

The scenes from Minneapolis to Rapid City was not as bad as I thought it would be. Granted that it was kinda dull, flat prairie with all the farms and cows, still, it is not really that dull, as I was managed to stay awake during the entire trip. So, here are some pictures that I took yesterday before we are dealing with the towns where I lingered for more than five minutes....




Passing through this town. What's this town's name again? Monteka or something?








Welcome to South Dakota




Along the way to Cedar Rapids, I kept getting bombarded by corny advertisements about a corny town with their corny corn palace. So, feeling corny, I decided to look to this corny town named Mitchell. While the building looks interesting, to my chagrin, it is just a huge community center. Basically, tourist trap. There were old pictures and some murals made from corn there. Plus, souvenir stands. That's all folks. The only good thing was that the admission wasfree, otherwise I would be pretty pissed off.






On the road...again....




One thing that always fascinates me in my travel is how big the United States is, especially when you are looking at these kinds of pictures, it is all rolling prairie wherever you see. Of course, it is also interesting comparing the pictures that I took in Michigan, on the glory of the Great Lakes, to this vastness of the prairie. Whenever I took these pictures, I always reminded of that old show "Little House on the prairie." (The show took place in Minnesota, so pretty darn close)





Aside of that, there were also several "ghost town" attractions. I only took one picture of them, then moved on. I don't need no stinkin' ghost town, pardner, especially when you had to pay to get in.


Speaking of the Little House on the Prairie, before you get in the Badland, there's a prairie homestead park, presenting an old prairie house.... $7.50 per person.... Too rich for my blood.... Thank goodness for zoom function in cameras.



Finally, we arrived at our goal: the Badlands. There was a $15 entrance fee, which I decided to pay. The scenery is breathtaking and if you like to linger there, the pass valids for a full week. So, it is not a bad bargain. I took lots of pictures here, however, I only going to post a few of them.





Somehow I just wanted to take this picture:





Bunny....















Before we move on, take a look on this map:

So far, I took the route 240, which was the popular route. According to my guide book, however, I should continue to route 590 to Scenic, then take 44 to Cedar Rapids. However, I missed the 590 junction (I will tell why shortly), so I went directly to Wall.

Before I left Columbus, when I told John Mueller, my advisor, about this trip, he told me to try to visit Wall. Well, here I was, though, frankly, I found this entire thing... tacky... a huge tourist trap smacked right in the middle of nowhere. Though, it seems that he was right: this place was very popular. It was mentioned in national media such as New York Times. It was basically a huge cowboy-style shopping mall.





Jurrasic Park's Tyrannosaur Rex, roaring every 12 minutes.


I was tempted to find a hotel there in Wall, however, I also wanted to go to Cedar Rapids, which might be much better. To my surprise, Cedar Rapids was another one hour drive from Wall, and I thought they were like 15 min apart or something. Since it would take some time anyway to go to Cedar Rapids, I decided to find the missing "route 590." So, I decided to go back to Badlands. Then, I realized, why I missed the route: the entire stretch was a gravel road, unpaved, and nobody was sane enough to pass that road. But, well, here we go again.... One note though, if you are that cheap not wanting to pay $15, then you may want to take this route to go to the Badlands. However, with the price of gas going for $4 and the horrendous quality of the road, $15 was not a bad bargain.


Okay, where are all the dogs? I didn't see any of them.... (It supposed to be underground, FYI)


Bisons....





Two hours drive... ended in Cedar Rapids tired and pissed off. All hotels were booked and where I stayed was a lucky break: someone canceled his or her reservation. Bad news: internet connection was horrible. Took me an hour to upload all the pics. Oh well. Hopefully tonight's hotel will be nice.

Final note: my only regret about this enterprise is that I skipped Minuteman Museum. It would take me another good 2 hours to go back there from Cedar Rapids and frankly, I don't think I am willing to do that. Today will be a long day anyway, Rushmore, Custer, Blackhill, and the Center of the United States awaits.

Happy traveling.