Cross Country Road-Trip Day 6 (July 7):

Sturgis, SD to my Childhood Home in Woodbury MN

       We got up in Sturgis, ate breakfast, hitched up our trailer, and hit the road.  We had a long way to go this day, but we also wanted to take a drive through the Badlands National Park, so we got an early start.  It was a perfect, sunny day for our trip with almost unlimited visibility.  From Sturgis to the badlands, we skirted the Black Hills and then entered the Midwestern prairie.  After about 80 miles on the interstate, we reached Wall, SD and turned south on 240 for about another 10 miles to the entrance of Badlands National Park.    

Although the badlands was a slight diversion from our route, it was well worth the extra time to drive through the National Park.  Once again we were able to get free admission with our park pass.  The ancient rock formations of the Badlands are a contrast from the Prairie that surrounds them.  Of course, we saw plenty more prairie dogs in the badlands, but around every turn we saw interesting rock formations and bright colors.  The landscape really reminded me of the Southwest. Our trip off the interstate through the Badlands was only about 30 miles.  We took a couple of hours to go through the park, enjoy many views, and stop at the visitor center. 

After the badlands the landscape turned from prairie to cornfields and more cornfields.  We continued to drive through more cornfields for several more hours.  After that we saw more cornfields, some wind turbines and more cornfields.  By about noon I was getting hopelessly behind schedule by going 60MPH to get good mileage and had to pick up the pace.  Luckily, we were able to stop at a Taco Bell at a truck stop to get fueled up.  On the day we covered 670 miles and were on the road for about 12 hours including our meal and rest stops. We made it into my Mother’s driveway at about 10PM we leveled the trailer and went to sleep after telling my mother about our trip so far.