434 miles and whadda get? Minnesota!

A long day, but the roads are now only rolling instead of mountainous, traffic is lighter, and the traveling is easier as we get back into the routine.

Northern Iowa and southern MN are very similar.  Both have large farm complexes, surrounded by acres and acres of brown fields.  The fields here have only just begun to sprout whatever is planted. We are seeing a few that have that greenish blush of sprouts just peeping up from the ground. (but not this field...)

Lots of barns in each complex

And many, many silos, all protecting the harvst from the severe northern Midwest winters.  This system is a group of inter-linked steel silos.

We do still see the old-fashioned concrete stave ones, plus the tall blue Harvestore ones.  The Harvestore ones are a low-oxygen silo construction, making them safer.  Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures of them, as it's' pretty hard to get good pictures at 70 mph of things in the distance. Maybe tomorrow....  But, for more than you ever wanted to know about silos (pretty interesting, actually) click on http://www.farmbuildingguide.org/silos.html

We did cross the Mighty Mississippi River.  Not too mighty at this little crossing

Luke was especially enthralled with the nicely done and informative rest stop near Davenport, IA.  ---- from Luke --- tidbits of trivia: The elevation of the Mississippi River at Davenport is 735 ft above sea level. It flows for 2552 statute miles to the Gulf of Mexico and makes 26 "steps", presumably dams and locks.

We also traveled part of the "Avenue of the Saints", a 563 mile long series roads that connect St Paul MN with St Louis MO. For more than you probably want to know, you can click on 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avenue_of_the_Saints

Last night's Wal-Mart was a good stop.  We were able to park out of the way (as usual) beside, basically, a drainage pond.  But this is a clean little pond, green grasses surrounding it, purple flowers blooming, and best of all, BIRD LIFE!  Can you imagine Smoke's fascination!??  She stayed glued to the windows, watching and talking to the birds. This morning 3 Canada Goose families, complete with all of their ugly little gray babies, crossed to the pond and did their morning swim/weed nibble.  Very cute.

I can make a recliner just by turning passenger chair and the rocking chair - did so last night and Smokey decided it would be good to join me.  Very comfy.

I have another traveling companion this year - Chickie!  Chickie is a soup cup filled with the old standby plant, Hen and Chicks.  Nikki's boyfriend Tom gave it to me on Mother's Day.  It is GREAT to have something green (and hardy) in the RV. She was helping us navigate yesterday....

Tonight we will be in the Badlands of South Dakota.  We have passed through there before and were amazed a the formations.  This time we are spending 2 nights at a campground in infamous Wall, SD (will explain with pictures later) and will have more time to visit the Badlands.