Another Day, Another State

It was a lazy morning for the Caron family as we enjoyed a little bit of extra shut eye.  We got up for breakfast at 8:30 and then enjoyed playing in the pool until a little after 10:30.  Check out time at our hotel was 12:00 pm, so we made the most of our stay - taking showers and organizing our plans for the day.

Pictures and American Pride made with corn!

We stopped at the The Corn Palace, which was in the community of Mitchell where we were staying.  There was free admission to this place and the exterior of the building had designs made with different type of corn, it was pretty amazing.  We strolled through the palace where there were many corn related items for sale.  It kept the kids amused for an hour and it kept us out of the stifling heat.  The van registered 33 degrees, but it felt so much hotter because of the humidity in the air.

Another picture made with corn

David being corny

Andrea found a hat she thought Doug would like.

Natalie enjoyed her popcorn treat

Sioux City Falls

Next we made our way to Sioux City Falls, which is located near the border of South Dakota and Minnesota.  An exciting thing happened during this part of our journey - we passed a RV camper towing a car and both had PEI license plates.  Francois slowed the van down as we were passing by and we watched as the lady sitting in the passenger's seat read our license plate and then motioned to her husband who was driving.  We all waved and I must admit it made me a little homesick.  I was curious to know who they were and how long they had been travelling, but we did not meet up again.  Francois and I think this is the first PEI license plate we have seen since we left New Brunswick so many weeks ago.

Another portion of the falls

We stopped at Sioux City Falls for lunch and ate in Falls Park, which is a huge park located in the middle of the city.  There are five different falls in park and lots of different walking areas to view the water as it spills over the rocks.  The heat was stifling and the kids just wanted to sit in the shade as Francois made a late lunch of Kraft Dinner and veggies.  I couldn't sit down as there were many gophers and prairie dogs crawling around, I ventured out and walked around the park viewing the falls.

David and Tanya

Francois and the girls

After lunch we walked to the observation tower where you have a wonderful view of the falls at a higher level.  Francois wanted to take a picture of the four of us outside the tower, but I wasn't sure if I could walk out onto the platform.  Francois scoffed at me and said this was a miniature tower compared to what we had to climb in Yellowstone National Park - but still I wasn't sure.  As David would say, "It was easy peasy" and I didn't mind being out on the platform.  We took a few pictures and then rushed back to the comforts of our air-conditioned van.  Francois and I were astounded to see a few people biking and running in the heat, we don't know how they handled it.

Lots of windmills along the way in Minnesota

We made our way to the Minnesota border and stopped at the Visitor Information Centre.  They were very helpful and had a list of communities along the I-90 Interstate and what were points of interest for each community.  We decided we would make our way to Albert Lea for the evening.  As we drove towards our destination we could see hundreds of windmills on the horizon.  I think Minnesota has the most windmills of any place we have seen along our journey.  I tried to take a picture of it, but the result does not show the vast amount of windmills we saw along the highway.  We also saw miles and miles of cornfields - everything looks so green and lush, it was a beautiful drive.


As we drove along the highway black clouds loomed in front of us, I kept wondering if we were driving into another storm, but it was just a rain shower and we arrived safely at our destination.  After supper we played a game of softball in the side yard of the hotel ( the forecast is calling for thundershowers again this evening) and a young boy, Matthew, even joined us for a inning.  


The kids are now in the pool winding down before going to bed.  They have spent a lot of time in the pool over the last month and we can see a big improvement on everyone's swimming skills.  I think they are starting to miss home as they have made reference to it a few times.  Natalie and Andrea are looking forward to playing softball when they return and David just wants to visit with Grammy and play with his friends, including his big friend Darren, who he talks about a lot. 


Well this is the earliest I have finished this blog in a long time - I am waiting for our laundry to finish washing so I can put it into the dryer.  I hope I can get to bed early this evening, or maybe veg out and watch a show on TV.  Not sure what our plans will be for tomorrow - we may hang out in this town at least for the morning.


Take Care
Tanya