Wyoming 2017, day 2

I know it’s a bit early, but we want to get on the road. You snooze while I load the van, then we’ll stop for breakfast at County Fair.

Can you believe that we got 2 eggs, toast, and almost an entire dinner plate of crisp-on-the-outside hash browns for $3!!  What a great place!  What? Yes, I dug in too fast to get a photo.  Sorry about that.  Into the van and fasten your seat belt. The rest of South Dakota and Wyoming await.

This part of South Dakota still looks like (and is) farmland, but when we get to Chamberlain and cross another wide river, the Missouri, the landscape will change to more grazing, although we’ll also start seeing fields of cheerful bright yellow sunflowers.

Whenever I cross the Missouri, I think of an American folk song we sang when the girls were little. I’d play “Oh, Shenandoah” on the piano and we’d all sing.  Here’s a version I like, although the lyrics are slightly different than the ones we sang.

It’s corny…and it isn’t.

Several summers ago, my friend and I were on our way to Wyoming for a week of vacation in the Big Horn Mountains.  The rest of my family wasn’t able to make it and my friend had, oh, miracle of miracles, been able to take off an entire week.  She’d never been on a road trip of that magnitude nor been to that part of the country, so I was trying to decide what she should see on the way out or the way back.

Usually we don’t stop except for necessities such as food, gas, and pit stops, because we can’t wait to get to Wyoming and we do all our sightseeing on the return trip.  But on our second day, I realized there were two places we needed to stop on the way out, leaving Mt. Rushmore and the Badlands for the trip home.

Still on the road

Just a little sculpture in a field

Up early, we breakfast with the bikers, then get on our way.  The speed limit in South Dakota is 75, so the van flies along at a steady 80, eating up the miles.  South Dakota is flat but beautiful, misty this morning after last night’s rain.  There are rolls of hay everywhere and the bright stubble from the baled hay stands in sharp contrast to the sky and the deep green of the soybean fields.  The corn is suffering; the dry-land corn is truly dry and looks crinkly.  Even corn that’s been irrigated doesn’t have as many ears per stalk.  Many fields look ready for harvest but it’s much too early.  This bodes ill not only for farmers but for everyone, since corn is a part of so many products.  Many spots usually filled with water are either just cracked earth or have only a little water in them.  Fields of sunflowers give a Provencal look to some areas.  Their bright yellow faces turned toward the sun, they appear to contradict the dryness surrounding them.