We were up early this morning, and met Steve's parents, his brother and our sister-in-law for a little adventure. We are heading to South Dakota!
Now you might be wondering what South Dakota has to offer, so let me tell you...it has the Black Hills, Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and even Sturgis! But we weren't going to see any of those national treasures. We had a much more important trip planned. We were on our way to visit the land that Steve's family homesteaded in the late 1800's.
Steve's mom planned this trip and was sponsoring it for all of us. She wanted her boys to better understand this part of their family heritage, and was gracious enough to include us wives!
So we all piled into the minivan (where there isn't a bad seat...all were very comfortable), and off we went into the great unknown.
Steve's mom just got her coffee at McDonalds, so she is a happy girl! |
Sorry if some of the pictures are a little blurry. That's what happens at 65 miles per hour from the third row seat of a minivan.
The landscape throughout our drive varied between different kinds of agriculture. The land is vast in South Dakota, with views for miles in every direction.
Hay bales in the field |
Pasture land |
Millet or some other type of grain |
Sunflowers zooming by! |
We stopped for gas in one of the small towns, and as I was standing in line for the ladies room, I noticed these on the shelf of the convenience store. Very interesting! Another thing we had never seen or tried before....oh what fun!
We stopped for lunch in the small town of Valentine, South Dakota, at a place called Runza. It appears to be a chain and it appears to serve some sort of fast food, so we decided to give it a try.
Even when we ordered, we didn't realize that their specialty is kraut burgers (which they call runzas). They are beef, onion and cabbage on a homemade bun. If I had known this, I would have ordered differently. I had an Asian chicken salad, which was probably healthier than a kraut burger, but not nearly as fun. But I did enjoyed trying a bite of Steve's mom's runza.
Steve's dad enjoying his kraut burger. |
Since we're from a bigger city, we never see grain silos in the middle of town, so this was interesting to us.
There are a lot of ethanol plants in the area. Ethanol is a fuel made from corn that is added to gasoline to cut down on emissions. This gas mixture works fine in modern cars. One strange thing we found was that most gas stations in South Dakota offer unleaded gas with, and without ethanol. The gas with ethanol is about $0.35 per gallon cheaper, so we assume that the farm equipment must need the gas without ethanol.....again, just strange to us as we had never seen this before.
When we arrived in Aberdeen, South Dakota, we checked into our room at the Holiday Inn Express. Our room was nice, with two queen beds. Since we are members of the rewards club, we get the best room available when we check in, so we gave that room to Steve's parents, so that they could host the cocktail hour in their room.
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