As it was our first day, we were abel to leave bright eyed, bushy tailed and only slightly hungover, so we cheerily dove into America's beautiful description-demanding Interstate System.
Three-hundred miles later, we stopped for gas. Oh!: I also bought a beefstick.
About 350 miles after that, we stopped for gas again.
To be fair, there was stuff to see on I-90. Or, at least, the nothing to see in SW Minnesota and South Dakota was different enough than the nothing to see we're used to on the interstates in eastern Iowa, central Minnesota, and Wisconsin.
Example: SW Minnesota is big. As we left the relative density of the Austins, Faribaults, Rochesters, et al., and the horizon expanded, some weird infra-physics law kicked in, and the wind turbines (which Lindsey seems to have some sort of spiritual connection to; I don't know if we passed a single windmill that didn't receive an awed, gaping stare), power lines, billboards, and even other cars on the road ballooned to gargantuan proportions in response to the lower-pressure environment. I half expected my puny little urban body to bloat like a saltwater fish dropped into a river.
After clearing Sioux Falls, it quickly became clear that either Mitchell, SD was the place to be or that the roadside advertising industry employs a sizeable fraction of the South Dakota workforce.
We decided that when on I-90 one should probably heed billboards that at points had over one corn pun (the Corn Palace has great "ear-chitecture," we were informed) per mile.
Mitchell, SD seems to be a semi-intentional homage to roadside americana of the past 60 years. The cultural epicenter of Mitchell is, of course, the Corn Palace (fun fact South Dakotaphiles: the interior of the Corn Palace is mostly an auditorium/gym complete with ceiling-hung score cube!), which presides over a small fiefdom of tacky 50's-era motels, kitsch outlets, and a wide variety of "museums," including an abandoned Doll Museum (creepy!). The only other thing to be said about Mitchell is that the Corn Palace, for all its hype, does truly suck. Go there only to say you have gone there and to tell other people that it sucks.
The rest of the time on I-90 was pretty boring outside of all the Wall Drug billboards (there must either be a small army of billboard gremlins based out of Wall or the South Dakota landscape naturally grows corny-ass billboards like "Wall-ways in season!" that are actually closer to weeds than marketing) and an awesome Christian radio program on masculine friendships ("I know I need a buddy, but how far can this buddy thing go?" and "when a man does open his chest [and becomes close to another man] there is a prize worth having").
OK campers, but we are wearing out our welcome at this Bruegger's, so the details of the rest of Day 1 will have to wait a little while.
A taste: come back to find out why Lindsey refuses to "do two people at once."
Ok, off to places already discovered and municipalized! Until next time,
-L&D
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