The Great Midwest Road Trip of 2014: South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa (Part Three)

Stop six and a half: Wall, SD and Mitchell, SD
There is nothing exciting in between Rapid City and Sioux Falls. This is why places like the Wall Drug Store and the Mitchell Corn Palace exist. I was not a fan of either of these tourist traps, but if you're traveling through South Dakota, they do help to break up the five hour drive. They're both free to visit.

Everything was slightly creepy at the Wall Drug Store

All of the stores (which basically sold the same crap) were connected together

Outdoor play area for kids that was kind of like a very poor man's Disneyland (very poor)

Six foot rabbit? Sure, why not?

We tried to make the best of it

Three hours later we arrived in Mitchell at the Corn Palace. It is still being decorated so it didn't have quite the impact as I'm guessing it normally would have. Inside the Corn Palace is basically the equivalent to a high school gym. The majority of the "gym" was taken up by their gift shop, but they did have a cubicle-like wall separating an area for people to watch a short movie about the Corn Palace. It was so noisy with all the kids talking and playing in the gift shop that it was hard to hear why and how the Corn Palace was built, but it seems like a huge waste of food. I can't remember how many fields of corn it takes to design the building, but I do remember turning to look at Bryan and mouthing, "REALLY?!" Also, on a side note, I did buy a corn on the cob from their concession stand and it wasn't good. Pretty disappointing that the Corn Palace makes crappy corn.

Their theme for 2014 is Remember When (maybe referring back to a simpler time when Americans didn't waste a bunch of food, time, and money decorating a building)

Don't get me wrong - it's a cool concept and their murals are done really well, but come on guys? How wasteful can we be!

Stop seven: Sioux Falls, SD
About an hour later we finally arrived in Sioux Falls. When we finally got out of the car Bryan looked at me, his nose scrunched up and said, "Does it smell like poop here to you?" And it did. I'm not sure why, but we were staying at a hotel by the river so maybe that was it.

The next morning we had breakfast at Phillips Avenue Diner, walked around downtown Sioux Falls (the poop smell magically disappeared), and then went to Falls Park. Downtown Sioux Falls also had a sculpture walk going with sculptures along the main road. We didn't see all of them, but did manage to see most of them. And yes, it's the second time in South Dakota that we ate breakfast and then went on a sculpture walk. It might be a new trend.

This was right outside the Phillips Avenue Diner

Bryan's favorite

My favorite

We both liked this one

After walking around downtown we decided to check out Falls Park before we left South Dakota. We almost didn't go, but I'm really glad we did because it was really cool.

It was the perfect day to see this

Stop eight: Omaha, NE
After Falls Park, we made what was supposed to be a 2 hour and 45 minute trip to Omaha. As we were driving down 29, though, we had to take a detour since some of the road was closed. This was a 45-minute-long detour. We had no idea where we were going and they only used about five signs the entire time so you didn't really know if you were still on the detour or not.

We finally got to Omaha, dropped off our stuff at the hotel, and went out to explore. Our first stop was the Gene Leahy Mall, which is a beautiful park. Since everyone else in Omaha was at the College World Series we had the park almost to ourselves. Well, we also had to share it with the ducks.

Empty park on a beautiful day - baseball is clearly destroying everything good about America

Giant slides that I couldn't slide down because I was wearing a dress (I couldn't talk Bryan into going down either)

A little to the right was a family of ducks and a little to the right of them was all of their poop - classy ducks, real classy

After the park, we walked half way across the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge so we could stand with one foot in Iowa and one foot in Nebraska.

It may not look like it, but it was 200 degrees that day

I almost had a heat stroke in two states at the same time!

For dinner we ate at Dundee Dell (a recommendation from my friend Ellie). Bryan was in bourbon heaven and tried four different samples with dinner of stuff that he either can't get anymore or would have to pay an arm and a leg for in Chicago.

I think Bryan started silently crying because he was so happy with the selection here

Great wall of Scotch

The next day we made a stop to visit with my member company in Omaha, then we went to the Henry Doorly Zoo.

Everything they did was adorable

How cute is this guy? He kept hamming it up for us.

The famous walk-through aquarium

Taking a ride on the Skyfari

Bryan did not enjoy it as much as I did (the Skyfari is to Bryan what roller coasters are to me)

It really is an amazing zoo

After the zoo we went to my member company's pre-4th of July picnic for dinner and fireworks. However, Mother Nature had her own firework show and we got rained out. We made the drive back to our hotel through a pretty bad storm, but we made it okay.

Stop nine: Emerson, IA
The next morning we made the 45 minute drive to Emerson for the start of Bryan's family reunion. We met up with Bryan's grandfather and aunt at the Indian Creek Historical Museum. Bryan's grandfather showed us the property including an old barn, schoolhouse, and log cabin before heading into the museum which houses many of their family's antique farm equipment. I had a great time meeting Bryan's extended family and learning more about his family's history.

The Barn and the bridge which leads to the school and log cabin

One-room school complete with 48 star flag

I really loved all the art work on these feed bags

Just some of the farm equipment

Bryan and his grandfather

Family church - we went to service before heading back to Oak Park

Final thoughts:
This has been one of my favorite vacation experiences to date. There are so many beautiful and interesting places right here in the Midwest! Here are a few tips that I would share with anyone going on an extensive road trip:

1. Invest in a USB car charger for your phone
2. Pack a cooler with snacks and water bottles (buy the smaller bottles so you can fit more)
3. Get ice each morning from the hotel's ice machine
4. Use the "laundry" bags that are in your hotel closet to separate your dirty laundry from your clean (they're just plastic bags with the hotel name on it) or bring your own garbage bag to do that
5. Take videos and pictures - I started doing this later in the trip, but wish I would have captured a few 15-30 second videos of different things that we were seeing
6. Be flexible with your time
7. Watch the weather
8. Print out directions as you may lose cell or gps service in the more rural areas
9. Always make a great playlist (which should always include The Beatles)...

Our beautiful views from the road