Day 20 – Custer State Park, South Dakota to Iowa

Day 20 – Custer State Park, South Dakota to Iowa

August 16-17, 2013

Today became our last day on the road. We had a big breakfast at our campsite; the kids woke up the way I remember from my childhood camping – by the sounds of pots and pans and the smell of eggs and bacon. We were trying to leave early, but it was 10:30 am once we finally packed up and left the Legion Lake campground of Custer State Park. The drive was beautiful to Rapid City, SD and then the landscape slowly became more flat and less varied as we headed across South Dakota.

South Dakota has done a good job of promoting quirky tourist stops. Mount Rushmore began as a project to bring tourists into the Black Hills area of SD.  As we drove, we started to see signs for another called Wall Drug. I have never stopped, but as far as I can tell, it is a large store with lots of facets and gimmicks to bring people into the town of Wall, SD. They begin advertising it in roadside signs and billboards about 100 miles from the actual location. We tried to glimpse it from the highway, but did not stop.

About four hours later, we did stop at another SD promotion, the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. The signs for it brought us in a big loop around the downtown area. The Corn Palace is an event center which has been decorated on its outside walls and some interior walls with ears of corn.

Each year the town decorates it differently, but the building essentially houses what looks like a basketball court. We took a few photos, bought some corn, and found a place for dinner. Our dinner place did turn out to be a find, a steak (and pasta for the boys) house called Chef Louie’s. Over our rather large dinners, we decided that we were up for the additional five hours it would take to reach home in Iowa.

So, we are still on the road at 1 am. The boys are asleep in the back of the RV. Ricardo and Alle are on their respective iPhones listening to music. Ricardo is driving and I’m trying to type on the bumpy road of Interstate 80 heading east. We were going to have one last night of camping at Niobrara or even a KOA on the border of South Dakota and Iowa, but we all want to get home.