Day 23: Minnesota to South Dakota

Tuesday, April 28

View Day 23 in a larger map

We started with breakfast again, thanks to Sri. This time, we opted to have more of a continental breakfast so we could get on the road, as we wanted to run some errands and still get to Rapid City, South Dakota by the end of the day. After saying goodbye to Sri, we drove back toward Minneapolis to stop  We stopped at the Lands’ End inlet (outlet store) briefly, gassed up, and picked up some groceries, then got on the road.

Zahid’s former co-workers, Melissa and Barney, were driving in the opposite direction to get from Washington to Michigan. We had hoped to cross paths with them, and maybe meet them for a quick meal, but we were staying on I-90 and they ended up taking I-80 across. I-90 across Minnesota and South Dakota is a nice drive, peppered by lots of small farms (presumably dairy farms). And some very odd artwork!

South Dakota

In South Dakota, there’s a sign advertising the “Golden Spike,” so we stopped, thinking we were going to see something commemorating the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. (You history buffs would probably have seen this coming, since the “Golden Spike” of railroad lore was in Utah, not in South Dakota, but we didn’t pay that much attention in history class.) It turns out that this memorial was for the completion of I-90, which dates back to the ancient era of 1978. False advertising, I say!

Commercialism in Western South Dakota

It’s possible that western South Dakota can boast the highest billboards-to-attractions ratio in the world. In fact, just two “attractions” (Wall Drug and the Rushmore Borglum museum) were responsible for probably 70 billboards between them on our drive west. To make matters worse, when we reached them, both of these places were closed (Wall Drug had closed 10 minutes before we got there, and the museum was closed for “the season”.)

Yes, if you do the math ... this billboard for

a South Dakota drug store is in Minnesota!

Yes, it was defaced in SD, but can you imagine what

activists would have written on it if it were in CA?

As we neared Rapid City, we tried Priceline again for a hotel. Our bid of $35 for a mid-range hotel was not accepted, which normally means you’re out of luck in terms of using Priceline for that night. This time, Priceline let us try again after recommending we up our bid to $47. We did so, and the bid was accepted by a Radisson Hotel that turned out to be reasonably nice. 

Rapid City

After checking in, we ventured into the streets of Rapid City toward a restaurant at which we’d reserved a table, the Corn Exchange. (We used Yelp for recommendations on where to eat.)  On the way there, we saw why Rapid City calls itself the City of Presidents—the streets of the city feature sculptures of several of the presidents. This was a really cool effect—we saw JFK, William Howard Taft, and Martin Van Buren. Apparently, the city plans to eventually have life-sized sculptures of all the presidents on the downtown corners. We intended to come back and get pictures the next morning, as it was dark, but we did not end up doing that, so we have no photos of our own to share. Instead, though, you can check out the sculptures at this Presidential Walk website.

The Corn Exchange was a fantastic restaurant. (Way to go, Yelp!) Zahid got a filet, and it was a great cut of meat that was cooked perfectly. Sandy had roasted chicken that we agreed wasn’t quite as good, but it was still a wonderful meal, and the flourless torte she had for dessert was fabulous. We would recommend this restaurant to anyone visiting Rapid City.

We hit the sack as soon as we got back to the Radisson. The hotel featured the “sleep number” bed, about which we’d heard much advertising hype, but the bed did not live up to the hype—it basically felt like an Aerobed. Otherwise, the Radisson was a fine place.