South Dakota, I-90, Mitchell and Wall

  Originally we had planned on taking only two days to cross South Dakota after leaving Watertown on the eastern side. Plans change. We decided to take our time and see some things. We left Watertown Tuesday morning and headed to Mitchell where we would find the Corn Palace. We didn't get there till after 4 and the Corn Palace closes at 5 so we decided to spend two nights there so we could get the full effect. As it turned out the "full effect" took less than an hour to get. It seems the Corn Palace on the inside is just your average everyday arena, they were practicing basketball. The exterior was the big attraction. It was covered with corn, all kinds of colored corn and straw. They redo the exterior every year and were in the process of doing so when we were there. Fortunately, just a few miles away was the Prehistoric Indian Village. An actual archeological site where there was a Mandan Indian village around 1000 A.D. Now that was worth the stop. They had one building that had several artifacts from the dig site along with a full size replica of one of the earth lodges the Indians lived in way back when. The other building was a large nine sided structure. When you entered you took a walkway up and around the interior wall. As you went up and looked over the railing you saw the actual dig site, still in process. No digging was going on at the time, in fact they only have archeologists there for one month a year that come from England. It was very interesting to see and learn so much, not only about Mandan Indians in 1000 A.D. but what an archeological dig site looks like and how it works.

  We left Mitchell early on Thursday morning and headed to Wall, home of the world famous Wall Drug. We gained an hour when we entered the mountain time zone so we got to our camp site, set up, and to Wall Drug by about 3:30. This gave us until 7 to explore the place. Don't let the name full you, it has a drug store in it but it's much more than that. It was mostly touristy stuff, refrigerator magnets, T-shirts etc. But we had fun and that's what counts. Tomorrow we head to Spearfish in the Black Hills and plan on staying until Tuesday, lots to see lots to do.