Greetings from Minnesota

Today was another long driving day but with some scenic detours along the way. Devil's Tower was only a short detour from I-90 up Hwy 14 and I missed it last time I was through here so I made a quick pitstop. Hwy14 was a great twisty backroad and at that hour there was almost no traffic so I took advantage of it as much as possible. Gotta keep the average mph up :) I spent about an hour at the park walking around and taking pictures. I thought that Devil's Tower was basically just the remaining core of a volcano that had eroded away. That's not quite right, the core itself was buried at least a mile underground. So when you're standing at the base of the tower you're actually standing a mile underground, well you would have been a few million years ago. Impressive stuff.
Back on 90 I quickly passed into South Dakota, land of the billboard. South Dakota could actually be a pretty scenic state if you could see past the billboards. There are eleventy billion of them for Wall Drug alone. Oh and the reptile farm. And anything else that might just be 200 miles down the road. I hopped off 90 to take Hwy240, the Badlands loop. I had been there in 2003 and was glad to finally get another pass through the park. There were a few places that I remembered from last time that I couldn't find today. I doubt the park has changed so maybe they were off of a side road. This ended up being a 2hr detour with quite a bit of walking and hiking. The weather was perfect all day although it is starting to get warm, temps in the 80s instead of the 40s we had in the Tetons.
I was back on 90 at 1:30 and hadn't really made alot of progress so far, I was hoping to make it halfway across Minnesota before stopping so it was time to crank the cruise up and roll. There seems to be a bit more enforcement in SD than Montana and Wyoming, I actually saw some police cars today. People tend to cruise at higher speeds in SD too. In Wyoming/Montana I was blowing past most people with the cruise set at 82mph but in SD I was just creeping by. Late afternoon I was just about to the Minnesota border so I stopped for food and gas in Sioux Falls. From there it was only about 180 miles to Albert Lea in Minnesota which is where I was hoping to make it today. I finally rolled in at 8:30, well 7:30 but I lost an hour when I rolled through the central time zone. Speed limits are down to 70 in Minnesota. I'm going to miss the big western states for the scenery and sheer cruisability. I imagine things will get slower as I get further east. Minnesota is pretty nice though. Lots of farm country along 90 with farmhouses tucked into trees. Quite picturesque with the sun setting in the background. Tomorrow will hopefully be a multi-state day, I'm hoping to be in Toledo tomorrow evening.

Trip Stats:
700 miles
9.5hrs of driving
73mph average speed
26mpg
16k ft climbed
two gas stops