Coast Z Coast with John & Lynn: The Badlands

Our day began in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Being as perceptive as we are, we knew there must be a falls somewhere. Well sure enough, right downtown is Falls Park.

It was a very pretty area with a park, picnic area and series of small water falls.

Evidence of technology is everywhere, from the front seat of our car (computer, cell phone, camera) to the majestic corn fields of Iowa and South Dakota.

We have seen large numbers of these wind mills among the corn stalks and several tractor trailers hauling the huge blades. We'll try not to let them taint our image of the 'old west'.

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Our journey continued across I90 heading toward the Badlands. Definitely billboard country ~ they are everywhere.
One in particular caught our eye and led to our next stop ~ The famous Corn Palace of Mitchel, South Dakota.

It is a small community center that is decorated each year with different colored ears of corn.

It is actually a very large paint by number. Very large murals are drawn and lettered with the color of corn to be placed there.

Then each year over 275,000 ear of corn are cut in half and nailed to the outside walls of this building. It is actually quite amazing even though it was pretty corn-y.

As we continued across I90 we stopped for lunch at a rest area that was the site of Lewis and Clark's crossing of the Missouri River in 1804. There is now a memorial bridge over the river in this spot.

The topography had been flat and open and we were anticipating a drastic change as we headed further west into South Dakota and the Badlands. As we got closer and closer to our destination we couldn't believe that the terrain still hadn't changed. Then, all of a sudden, there they were ~ the spires of the Badlands projecting from the prairie in all their glory.

These 'bad lands' travel along the wall that separates the upper prairie from the lower prairie and created difficult passage for the Lakota People and the early settlers.