Our first stop was about one hour away from Sioux Falls in the town of Mitchell. As some of you might know, Mitchell’s main attraction is the ‘Corn Palace’ which is decorated anew each year with various colored ears of corn. From what I have learned, the colors are naturally occurring and they are not dyed to make the interesting patterns. The severe draught of this past summer meant that they did not create a new design for the exterior of the palace. We did not take make much of our visit to the palace. Basically, we remained across the street and took a few pictures of the exterior facade of the building.

Funny enough, the highlight of our stop in Mitchell was our breakfast at a small family-owned diner called “Kinders”. Located just off of I-90, they served great breakfasts – actually much better (and for far less cost) than our local ‘Pancake House’ which several of our friends have raved about.

After our stop in Mitchell, we continued to head West towards the Badlands National Park. I recall how amazed I was when I first saw the majesty of the landscape in that region. This picture gives you a fair sense of the type of geography of the region. The ‘badlands’ formations appear, at first glance, to be composed of sand/gravel, but, upon closer inspection, appear to be comprised of a very hard clay-like material. We drove through the park and stopped to pay our entry fee at the visitor’s center. As we were traveling through the ‘scenic loop’ as it is called, we came across a beautiful section of the drive called “Yellow Mounds Overlook” – and appropriately so. These formations were so vividly colored – to the extent that they almost looked as if the colors flowed from the brush of an impressionist painter. These mounds were formed from the deposits of ancient lakes and jungles which once occupied the site. Quite majestic. At first I suspected that these colors were attributable to either algae of fungi, but neither is the case. The colors are permanently fused with the rocks themselves – apparently fossilized remnants of a time long lost. We completed our drive through the ‘scenic loop’ and headed to the town of Wall to visit the famous (infamous?) Wall Drug. This stop is quite reminiscent of the East coast place called “South of the Border (SOTB)” that attraction is well-known for having hundreds of roadside billboards extending hundreds of miles to the North and South of SOTB on I-95. Wall Drug has a similar marketing campaign, albeit on a significantly smaller scale. Krista and my mom were excited about seeing the place, while, although my memories were not particularly vivid, I do recall not enjoying the stop the last time I was through the area.

We drove into the town of Wall, parked our car, and headed out to look for a place to eat and to do a little bit of window shopping. There were two or three places to eat, and the one which we ultimately chose was adequate – if not outdated and non-aestetically pleasing. However, the quality of the restaurant met my expectations which I automatically adjust based upon my eating context. Given the location of this restaurant and the ‘touristy’ nature of Wall itself, I had quite humble expectations for my burger, fries, and a diet coke. Anyway, we enjoyed the rest and were pleasantly surprised when we found out that we had an extra hour in the day! We were beginning to think that we were running out of time to see Mt. Rushmore when I had caught a glance at a clock on the wall to my left. Apparently we had entered U.S. Mountain time about 80 miles East of Wall. Good. That gave us the opportunity to visit Mt. Rushmore.