We woke up to a fine layer of dust covering everything from the wind the night before. I packed up the campsite while RJ worked. Several hours later I was still waiting on RJ and his work but we finally had to leave because it was check out time.
We had no intentions of actually visiting the Badlands but it just so happened that we were going right through them on our route to Minnesota.We weren’t able to stop and walk around even though we would have liked to. There was an entrance fee on the way in we could have paid but RJ needed to get to a place to work so the park ranger let us go on through as long as we didn’t stop and we stayed on the main road to the highway. The rock formations were very intriguing and full of different fossils.
We rode to a gift shop right outside the state park where we got gas and a buffalo hotdog. I’ve never felt bad about eating an animal before but this buffy hotdog was almost too much for me. We had seen so many cute baby buffies when we had driven through the Black Hills in SD on our spring trip that it made me a little sad to be eating buffalo. RJ gladly finished it for me before he sat down to do some more work for several hours.
After waiting for what seemed like an eternity on that workaholic of mine, we took off for Sioux Falls, SD where we had planned on stopping for supper.
We were starving. The only thing we had eaten that day was the buffy hotdog and some Chex mix (and an ice cream cone when I got tired of waiting on RJ). It was 10:30 by the time we stopped in Sioux Falls so we were ready for some food. We had some of the best steak fries while we waited on our burgers.They were covered in sour cream, beer cheese, bacon and green onions. We got our burgers and they were HUGE! RJ’s burger had duck fat fries, beer cheese, jalapeños, roasted garlic mayo and more all piled into his burger. Mine had bacon, blue cheese dressing and onion rings, to name a few, stuffed in-between the buns. We filled our bellies and after that little rest, we were good to ride for another hundred miles to the KOA.
(If you can’t tell already, we pretty much planned our entire trip around food)
We got to Jackson, Minnesota around midnight and pulled into the campground. But we couldn’t seem to find out tent site anywhere. Usually, the campground manager will leave an info packet out with a map of the grounds and our tent site number. But there was nothing. We walked through all the empty sites with our phone flashlights looking for one that had electricity hookups. Finally, RJ found the site where we were supposed to be. But, someone was already there. We had to pick a different spot and RJ went to the office in the morning and talked to the guy. He said he had left a map and site out for us but the other tenter must have taken our map and camp site. Since it was the only site with electric hookup, the manager was super nice and gave us a refund.
We headed for Minneapolis, a couple hours away. On the way, we passed by a massive yellow store plastered with billboards and signs. It was the self proclaimed largest candy store in Minnesota! It was a candy kingdom! We had to stop so we made a u-turn and walked on into that candy store.
They had every sort of candy there; a section of sour candy, Japanese candy, homemade pies, frozen candy, licorice, taffy, hot candy, oversized candy, and so much more. Hundreds of jigsaw puzzles were stacked on shelves running above the rows of candy. RJ was going crazy. We each got two things of candy; I settled for sour gummy bears and sour gummy worms and RJ got hot chili lemon corn nuts and a homemade oatmeal cream whoopie pie. It took him quite awhile to make up his mind; he couldn’t decide on only two things. We shared our treats on a bench outside the store.
After that little detour, we drove into Minneapolis where we stopped at a local grocery store to pick up a few things we had ordered and had sent to an Amazon locker inside the store. RJ had ordered a new helmet visor for his helmet and a couple blow-up pillows for us. RJ put his new visor on and I went next door to make an appointment for a haircut for RJ.
The lady that gave RJ a haircut was super nice and asked us what we were doing all the way in Minnesota. She thought we had come up for the fair. What fair??
She then proceeded to tell us, in her thick Minnesota accent, all about how it is the second largest fair in the United States and people from all over the country come to enjoy their fair. She said we had to check it out. We promised her we would and left in search of a coffee shop to sit down and get some work done.
After several hours of work, we headed to Taco Bell and ate a couple tacos and I ended up with a free large freeze. The guy at the register told us if we filled out a survey we would get a free freeze. Win! I had to call my friend Kayla and tell her about it because she loves T-Bell just as much as I do and I know she appreciates things like that. 🙂 It’s the little things, people.
We drove to our campsite on the outskirts of Minneapolis where we would be staying for the next couple of days.
Cheers!
em and rj
Next up: The Minnesota State Fair