We left South Dakota Thursday morning bound for Des Moines, IA that evening. We knew it was going to be a long driving day since we had to cover over 600 miles. But even then, we had a couple stops that we wanted to make. The first being to take a tour of a decommissioned missile silo, the second at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD, and the third was to dine on some delicious corn fed beef in Omaha, NE. The route we selected wasn't the fastest nor most direct, however, I needed to cross over the SD/NE border so I could cross Nebraska off of my "visited states" list. (Norman was gracious enough to comply with my request.) A brief review of each place:
Minutemen Missile Silo: An interesting glimpse into the Cold War, and that thought the end of the world literally could come at the push of a button. (Fortunately, there were numerous checks and balances required to the actual button pushing could occur.)
Mitchell Corn Palace: Disappointing. I envisioned a large structure made entirely of corn. The reality though was a building with corn-laden displays.
Omaha Steak: We had dinner at Johnny's Cafe in Omaha. The restaurant is an old-school steak house, family owned since the 1920's,and a fixture in city... The place is decorated with overstuffed chairs, dark wood, and styled in the chic of the 1950's. I ordered the "Omaha Strip", similar to a New York cut. It was tender and delicious, as were all the sides (a cottage cheese spread for bread, sauteed mushrooms, and homemade onion rings). Definitely worth the stopover. We arrived hungry and left stuffed and satisfied.
After leaving Omaha, we only had a couple more hours of a drive. As soon as we crossed the Iowa border, we were greeted by fireflies along the highway, blinking their unique welcome message as we drove past. For me, the road trip finally ended when we pulled into the Fairfield Inn parking lot in Des Moines, IA. For Norman, his trip continued to Illinois (so he could visit some family over the weekend), and from where he would returned home to Ann Arbor.
So what have I learned from this epic Midwestern journey? A few posts ago, I had listed a "Lessons Learned", so I thought it might be a good way to wrap up this adventure by sharing some more things that I've come to realize on this trip.
1. One of the reasons I set out on this trip was to see if the "there's nothing in the Midwest, especially in the Dakotas" myth was true. The result? FALSE. There is beauty in "those-thar-hills"! And some good food too!
2. Related to #1, wherever you may travel to, whether a roadtrip, backpacking, cycling, sightseeing, etc, there is always something to see. You just need to keep your eyes open and sense of adventure up.
3. I really missed my girlfriend Beth and wished she could have been there with us. (She was off having an adventure of her own.)
4. The only times I was disappointed in a site was when I had preconcieved notions/expectations (Mt. Rushmore, Corn Palace).
5. There are a lot of dirt roads in the Midwest.
6. The United States is a great place to visit. Especially for Americans. We speak the language, understand (most) of the customs, and the exchange rate is always 1 to 1 for us.
7. The Indian Taco is not what I remembered it being. Having said that, it was still tasty - you can't go wrong with frybread.
8. There are a lot of RV's in the Midwest. Everywhere we camped, it seemed tents were outnumbered 2 to 1.
9. Wall Drug in Wall, SD. HOLY CRAPOLA. (Facebook'ers, sorry for the repeat lesson.)
10. Some statistics (approximately):
- 3000- the number of miles we drove.
- 23- the number of mosquito bites on the back of my legs.
- 150+- the number of bison we saw
- Infinite- the number of bugs splattered on our windshield, front hood
So that's it for my "Great Road Trip". I'm not sure how to close, so I'll just say thanks for following along on this trip. Until the next trip (or post)!
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