Day 3 - Ooooh, I'm driving my life away...

GlacierTrip Mitchell (3 of 8)
Originally uploaded by Olivia Linkel

We got up early again this morning and were on the road around 7 am. Just as we were leaving the campground a thunderstorm rolled in and we drove for about an hour in off and on rain. The picture here is the prairie/corn fields in Iowa that we drove past all day on the western edge of the storm front. It is so flat through most of this country that you can see the clouds rolling in and know when you are going to hit rain, 20 minutes before you do.

We had a four hour drive ahead of us to get to the Herbert Hoover National Historic site. He was an interesting guy and seeing the town he grew up in and the 2 room cottage where he spent some of his childhood was pretty cool. Lorelei did the activities to earn her junior ranger badge and then we ate lunch and continued the long haul. We knew we had an even longer drive ahead of us this afternoon - appx. 7 hours.

In Iowa, we crossed paths with Laura Ingalls and her little house on the prairie. I mapped all of the places that are mentioned in the book and we were probably within 20 miles of where the home from that book stood. Pretty neat. The kids were fascinated by the indians and description of the prairie's from the book and when we arrived at the campground around 10 PM (central time) there was still enough sun for Lorelei and I to walk over to the fence and take a look at the actual prairie. I can't wait to make it a little further into South and North Dakota and visit some of the Indian sites and help the kids to understand that the indians described in the books no longer live like that.

Tomorrow we head to the corn palace here in Mitchell and then to the Badlands National park. We won't have Wi-Fi so expect two days of updates on Tuesday night. Total time on the road today was about 15 hours including stops which probably totalled about 3 hours.