A Corn Palace and Some Scary Storms...

We left the Black Hills heading East on I-90 and crossed from Mountain Time to Central Time. The landscape of South Dakota is beautiful. As we drove throughout the state, I noticed the small diamond shaped signs along the road. They put them up anywhere there has been a traffic fatality. The sign says "Think" on one side and "Why Die?" on the other side. They definitely do make you think.

One of the ubiquitous Wall Drug signs

Our first stop was in Mitchell, SD and the R & R Campground located behind the Super 8 Motel. We stayed there in 2014 and liked it and the Passport America rate made it a great deal. It's still a good place to stop but they are no longer Passport America and the rate with a Good Sam discount wasn't quite as good but it's still a good stopover spot. They do still give out a bottle of cold water to each guest as you check in. A welcome gesture when the temps are ninety degrees.

Mitchel is noted for having "the world's only Corn Palace" but fixing a broken closet rod in our fifth wheel took priority over seeing the Corn Palace in 2014. This visit we made it. Well, it's different but it's basically just a small convention center with lots of corn paraphernalia. The big draw is the cool murals on the outside of the building made completely of corn. They create new murals each year, done in late summer/early fall when the corn crop is ready. They're impressive.

From Mitchell we continued traveling East on I-90 into Minnesota. We stopped for a night at the Albert Lea/Austin KOA. It was a convenient overnight and the staff was very friendly and helpful but it was a bit pricey, as KOAs can be. We kept getting storm warnings and tornado watches on our phones as we were driving and were getting concerned. When we first arrived and settled in to our campsite there was a little sporadic rain but the skies looked okay...until they didn't. The clouds rolled in, the sky got dark and the rains came, along with winds and hail. It stormed for a couple of hours, then the sky lightened up just in time for a pretty sunset around 8:45.

The next morning...

We were thankful that no tornadoes materialized and glad to be moving on in the morning.