Watertown, SD

 Well, those of you are paying attention should note that this post should be titled Brookings, SD.  Best laid plans of mice and men go awry (or something like that).  We arrived in Brookings to our hotel where we made reservations only to find that the only room they had was on the second floor.  Since they had no elevator and we have a lot of baggage (no comment, please), that didn't work out.  So, I cancelled the reservation and we decided to try other hotels in the Brookings area.  Not sure what was going on, but there was not a room to be had in the three or four locations we tried.  The only good thing was that JT called while I was checking out hotels and Vi was occupied catching up with him (as did I in between hotel visits).  We continued talking to him while we were on the way north to Watertown.  We were both in the same time zone (Central) since Pensacola is in the western section of Florida.  Good talking with him after his trip to San Diego with George III and Taylor (newly-weds).

 We had breakfast at Wall Drug which is the major tourist attraction east of Mount Rushmore.  Some might say (unkindly) that it is a huge tourist trap.  True, but unkind.  Badlands National Park is in the same area, but we bypassed it this trip. Geography changes from badlands to rolling farmland.  Hundreds, nay thousands, of huge hay bales.  Think huge doughnuts, but without the hole in the middle. They even bale the hay on the right-of-way.   Don't have to describe that to the North Dakota group, but the rest might find it interesting.  Lot of corn fields (must have been knee-high by the Fourth of July).  Cattle and goats rounded out the countryside.

We stopped in Pierre (quick, what's the capital of South Dakota).  We like to stop at the rest area and visitor center which is right on the Missouri River for a walk and rest.  They experienced a really bad windstorm on Saturday and lots of trees had been blown down.  There were plenty of crews out cutting up and taking care of the downed trees.

Continued eastward with only a brief stop for a Dairy Queen in Miller, SD.  Had a brief detour south because the navigator was more interested in the Nora Roberts book we were listening to.  Thankfully, the driver realized that we were headed south instead of east.  Both parties shall remain unnamed!

Already explained our dilemma in Brookings, so I won't recap that.  Headed north to Watertown where we are staying at a Best Western.  Needless to say, it was a little later than we had planned.  The other good thing (besides talking to JT) was that we are a little bit closer to Fargo, so be warned!!!

Had a little bit of rain overnight, so that cooled it off nicely.  Nice to break the humidity.  Humidity, flies, and mosquitoes are something we are not used to in Nevada.

Maybe there was a little bit of karma with us not staying in Brookings which is the home of South Dakota State University which may or may not be the nemesis of NDSU.