Day 6: Brookings, South Dakota, to Superior, Wisconsin

Wow! The states sure are getting smaller! We had our feet in three different states today: South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Wind power: Why not?

'The answer my friend, is blowin' in the wind. The answer is blowin' in the wind.' Now if we can just get the powers that be to understand that, we'd be golden. Just east of Brookings, SD, is Lake Benton, also known at the Original Wind Farm Capitol of the Midwest. This small hamlet with a population of 603 (2008) may well be outnumbered by windmills. Hundreds of them, covering miles and miles of cornfields, quietly twirling their message of smart energy. It was astounding to see just how beautiful they can be, both visually and emotionally. To all those Cape Wind naysayers, GET WITH THE PROGRAM.

Land o' Lakes: Not the butter, Minnesota

Lake Benton, Minnesota

It wasn't too far after we crossed the South Dakota-Minnesota state line that we saw our first Minnesota lake, Lake Benton. We decided to stop and take pictures -- but quickly, because we had 9,999 more lakes to see! (The Minnesota nickname is "Land of 10,000 lakes.") While at the lake, which is very picturesque, we read a plaque that describes the geologic history of the region and how the lakes were formed by melting glaciers and ice dams. After reading the plaque and after driving for many miles and seeing many lakes of all sizes, we wondered if the lakes really are just one BIG lake and the land is just a bunch of islands.

Cornucopia
Cornfields as far as the eye could see! What a change from all the wheat, hay and alfalfa fields and rangeland we had traveled through in the West. It seemed as though someone gave us a new box of crayons, too, because now the landscape was so green!


Minnesota cornfield

Favorite signs:
New! Oscar Mayer Fried Bologna Biscuits

We don't know who's in charge, but someone in marketing at Hardee's needs to see a dietician. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKWYiNEtM2I

'COW Church' sign in rural Minnesota

I almost snorted milk through my udders when I saw this sign. Once again Deb didn't believe me (is my reputation REALLY that poor?), but when we Googled it from the hotel and found out it meant Church On Wednesday, it lost some of its visual humor. Just imagining heifers trying to sit in pews had me in giggles. And how does one play the organ with hooves?

Favorite menu item:
The Triple Bypass
We knew we were in the land of meats and cheeses when we stopped for breakfast at Cook's Kitchen, a local diner on Main Street in Brookings, S.D. On the menu was an item called "The Triple Bypass." It was a pile of food in threes: 3 eggs, 3 sausage patties, 3 strips of bacon, 3 pieces of ham, and so on. Needless to say, Steve & I bypassed this house specialty.

Favorite quotes:
Deb: "I'm getting all my prairies mixed up."
Steve: "That would be lakefood, not seafood."

Scenic Highways:
The Black and Yellow Trail: According to an entry in Wikipedia, "The Black and Yellow Trail was the promotional name for the portion of US 14 nominally linking the Black Hills of South Dakota to Yellowstone National Park. Established in 1912, the signed route was extended by promoters to Chicago in the east. In 1919, it was proposed as a brand for a continuous route from Boston to Seattle with the motto "a good road from Plymouth Rock to Puget Sound." The headquarters for the promotional association were established in Huron, South Dakota, with the aim of diverting traffic from the better-known Yellowstone Trail to the north. The Black and Yellow Trail also included portions of US 16, US 20, and US 41."

When I first saw these signs, I thought maybe they were referring to all of the sunflower farms we saw between Wall and Pierre, S.D., which were many. All of the yellow flowers with their black centers -- a good guess, eh? When I read the above description, I thought it was fabulously coincidental that our trip is from Seattle to Boston, so I guess the promoters would be very happy that we were driving their route.

Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Highway: As we neared DeSmet, South Dakota, we saw signs designating this stretch of Highway 14 as the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Highway. I am a huge fan of her "Little House on the Prairie" books, which I read over and over when I was in junior high. One of my favorites is "The Long Winter," which is the story of her family's survival of one of the worst blizzards to hit the Dakotas in the 1880s. I was very excited to see these markers and to know her life's work is celebrated in this way. The designation continued all the way to Lake Benton, Minnesota, which is just across the South Dakota state line.