Black Hills Heat!!!

The Black Hills are baking! Rapid City is 99 degrees as we pull into town. Just stopped by the Visitor Center to get some information for camping. We’re gonna head into the Black Hills and try to find a site. Thought about swimming…the information lady said the water’s about 45 degrees…doesn’t get up to 50 until August or so.

May have bad news on the horizon: word is that the Mt. Rushmore Fireworks may be canceled because of the dryness in the surrounding hills. We’ll keep you posted. Plans for tomorrow are to hike a bit and then Hardy shows up. After that, check out the area including Custer State Park, Badlands, and maybe Devil’s Tower on the way to Jackson.

The picture is one of many abandoned little farm houses out here in South Dakota…they’re kind of neat to see…kind of eerie as well. Keeping with the Kevin Costner theme that has apparently overtaken the early part of our roadtrip (see Field of Dreams), we’re in the same areas used for Dances with Wolves. Of course, SD is also home to Little House on the Prairie!

Goodbye Iowa, Hello South Dakota (via Minnesota)

Day 2 of the road trip. I don’t think that it’s really set in for me yet though. Tom says he feels like he’s on vacation but I don’t really. My theory is that it’s because I didn’t fly anywhere and everyone speaks my language so it still kind of feels like at home. Plus, we’re in Iowa which is pretty much like northern to mid-Michigan (think West Branch with more farms, more cows, and less towns).

We camped outside of Waterloo, IA last night at a little campground. We got there kind of late because after Field of Dreams (more on that in a second) we stopped in Dyersville to have dinner. We brought steaks to celebrate our first night on the road in style. We were at this little city park…which had a basketball hoop…with 3 guys shooting around. So Tom figures, hey, they need a fourth! After one game of pick-up ball we were back on the road to see how far we could get and then find a campsite.

The Field of Dreams was neat, but for reasons that I can’t really explain. I mean, AuGres basically has a Field of Dreams if you just go by the criteria of a ball diamond in a corn field, but this was different. The setting is very picturesque and it’s a little surreal to remember the movie and be standing in the same spot. But now it is on to our next adventure. We’re going to head north out of Iowa (they have free wi-fi spots at their rest areas!) and pick up I-90 in Minnesota. From there we’re going west to the Black Hills of South Dakota. Of course, first we’re going to stop at Wall Drug.

I thought I’d leave you with a Field of Dreams quote (as Shoeless Joe comes out of the corn onto the field as it is shrouded in fog):
“Is this heaven?”
“No, it’s Iowa.”