Day 5 – (Alright, it's now almost December, and I'm writing about August, get over it.) Talk about a low energy day. There was one more scheduled sightseeing stop on the 702 mile par 5 with a dog leg to the right that we had remaining.
The Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. The corn palace is really just the community gym/auditorium. But every year, they decorate the outside of it with corn. It's pretty neat, actually. Unfortunately, there was some kind of street fair going on, so we couldn't really appreciate it in totality.
The front of the building looked like this. (See street fair!)
And here's Gwen with the the Corn Palace mascot.
An example of how they do it in a "paint by numbers" sort of way.
Yeah, those little dots are the girls. Sorry.
But my favorite picture from Mitchell is this one:
You see, my wife is… well… there's no way to put it… she's UNIQUE. (And I love her for it.)
The prairie sun had been wrecking havoc on her skin. She'd gotten a sunburn on her arms, and her hands had started to swell. So she was cowering from the sun between two parked cars before "dashing" to the Corn Palace for pictures. And later, she donned a hoodie and a pair of winter gloves to battle that evil glowing orb.
But seriously, isn't she the most adorable thing you've ever seen?
As the morning drive continued, we crossed into Minnesota, where they were putting those prairie winds to good use.
As the morning turned to afternoon, we passed two signs that symbolize Minnesota.
The Spam Museum! I love the stuff, but the rest of the people in the car? Not so much. So onward we plunged until…
I kept looking at the estimated time of arrival at home on the GPS (we call him "Croc" because we chose the Australian accent), and realized a few things:
- It was possible to make it home that evening.
- That time did not factor in lunch, dinner, or stops for gas.
- I didn't have it in me to make it home THAT evening.
So at a rest stop in Minnesota (a thank you to the fine citizens of Minnesota for solving your budget crisis that had closed the rest stops earlier in the summer), Cora and I made a deal. Same deal as the day before, only this time we MEANT it. We would find a place around 6:00, get a room, have a nice dinner, and re-freakin-lax for a few hours.
Crossing the Mississippi into Wisconsin, we set our sights on Tomah, WI as our destination for the evening. It was perfect. We'd get there around 6:00, we'd have about 4 hours of driving in the morning. And we could make "Kindergarten Cop" jokes all night. ("It's not a Tomah!")
As we drove along, I saw this old barn that reminded me of home. From a "old red barn" point of view, not that our house was falling down or anything.
And since it was August, this guy must have be getting ready for snow or something.
At the hotel, we asked the desk clerk for her advice on a place to eat. She gave us a 10% coupon for the Ground Round. I wasn't expecting a whole lot of the Ground Round. I knew the name, but was thinking it was like the Sizzler (cheap steakhouse) or something. The food was surprisingly good.
After a relaxing night, the next morning was a snap. As we crossed the Wisconsin/Illinois border, I think the sign said, "Welcome to Illinois. Pay up." Ah, the toll road. A sure sign we are entering the Chicagoland metro area! Planning ahead, I'd taken my IPASS transponder with me, so I at least was paying the normal rate, not the double rate for cash. Every mile closer to home, things got more and more familiar, and changed from: "I drove up here once for a wedding" to "I used to go to that mega-cinema when it opened."
I know it's hard to read, but the question is, "Why are there all the hazardous material signs on a GE.COM/WATER truck?"
Our path took us past O'Hare, and Cora got a fabulous series of pictures of a plane landing right over the interstate.
And finally, we were home. 2,233 miles, 8 states, 4.5 days, and 58 gallons (or so) later: We. Were. Home.
After unloading the car, we did what everyone wants to do when the get home from a vacation.
We fell upon our beds and took long, solid naps.
Random bits from the road:
- We checked off the different license plates we saw on the road along the way. Rarest (and about the last new one we got): Rhode Island The strangest one we didn't get: North Dakota. We drove thru all the neighboring states, and were within 100 miles of the state once. 40 US states and 6 Canadian provinces.
- I wish we'd fueled up before leaving. Our stats are a little off, but basically, we got almost 39 mpg and paid an average of $3.71 a gallon, about $0.09 a mile.
- Would I do the drive again? Absolutely! Totally worth it. I would do it a little differently. Maybe plan in out as a 5.5 day trip. Taken a whole day at Yellowstone, then a travel day. Then a whole day @ Rapid City/Rushmore/Crazy Horse/Wall/Badlands. But totally worth the trip.
- Gwen, while I didn't talk about her much, was a total trooper. Can't remember one tantrum, snit, or whine-fest from the back seat the whole time. Yeah, she listened to her iPod a lot, but she was also looking out the windows, taking things in, and she really got into the license plate game.
- Cora. Was. Awesome. Cora does not like to drive in city traffic, but give her an open interstate, and the gal can drive.
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