We drove from Mitchell SD to Rapid City in the Black Hills.

The first stop was to visit the world’s only Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. The current Corn Palace (the third) serves as the town’s community center/gym/auditorium and is clad entirely in sliced cobs of corn. It takes thousands of ears of corn each year to make up the murals and wall decorations of the corn palace. One man is contracted to grow all of the corn required each year. He has come up with at least seven different types (colors) of corn used for the murals, which change and are removed and reinstalled annually.

Drove west to the Badlands National Park. Spent the afternoon driving through. Wow. After the flatness of Iowa and lower South Dakota, this was quite a change. The landscape changed to meandering cliffs and rock formations in the blink of an eye.

Saw a herd of bison off in the distance.

Stopped in Wall and visited Wall Drug late in the day. It’s amazing how much one man could affect a town by just putting up signs along the road advertising his drug store. It has become quite touristy, but where else can you ride a six foot tall jackelope?

We pressed on to Rapid City for the night.

Got a pair of free movie tickets with the hotel room and went to see the Bourne Supremacy. Woo hoo!