2014XC: Day 4, June 15 – Iowa to South Dakota

Up and out kinda early. We left the campground in Waterloo at about 9:30am and continued up through Iowa to Minnesota.

We stopped at the Welcome Center in Minnesota for a map and a break, and the attendant mentioned that we should stop at “Blue Earth” to see the 50ft Jolly Green Giant statue…so we did!

We drove again for another two hours to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Steve and Tyler talked about stopping there the morning as we left the campsite, and I am glad they did because I completely overlooked it in the brochures we picked up at the South Dakota welcome center. I thought Sioux Falls was just the name of a town and not actually falls! It was packed with people, but it was well worth parking “Freedom Express” and our truck at some closed plant 1/4 mile away. The park had lush grass and was well landscaped. When we got to the falls, Gabriel and Christian just started running towards it and begging to climb. We meandered around but didn’t stay long on the count of where we’d left the trailer.

Back on the road for about another hour, and then we stopped for pizza at “Pizza Ranch” and had dinner in the camper in the parking lot. The rest of the drive to the Badlands was l-o-n-g. Mostly through Minnesota it was flat, then a little hilly when we reached South Dakota. One thing that was cool because it was a little unexpected…it was dusk and we saw a body of water to the left of us from the highway. The map said it was the Missouri River. I didn’t notice when I looked at the map, but as we come over a hill suddenly there is this huge lake in front of us! Just a memory to jot down. 🙂

By the time we reached the Badlands it was dark, around midnight, but it was hard to tell if the landscape had really changed at all, thought it clearly seemed more desolate than anywhere else we’d driven so far. We stopped for gas at a 24-hr gas station, and even the kids said it felt creepy – not a soul around but us, and w-a-y too quiet! We finally made it to the campsite around midnight and were really really thankful for the “Freedom Express” and pull-in sites (whoever came up with that? GENIUS!!) because we were pretty much able to park and go right to bed with minimum setup!