Day 2- Madison, WI to Murdo, SD

Today we took a tour through America's heartland, stopping along the way at some of the more...relevant...sites we'll be seeing on this trip. We began this day's adventure by breakfasting with one of the handlers' old friends, Dave. I consented to have my picture taken with him.



Strange character, that Dave.

Afterwards we headed north and west through the Wisconsin Dells. Along our way we stopped to help a lonely Mennonite basket seller to right his fallen shade tent and to sample some of the state's finest cuisine. Meanwhile, I was helping out a local who had gotten into the advertising business. R.O.U.S.-es do exist my friends!

Carr's Cheese hut.

I was told the cheese was delicious. Alas! If they had only shared. After passing by some lovely scenery that foreshadowed what we'll be seeing in a few days time, we arrived at the state line and the mighty Mississippi!

Here's a photo of me and Handler 1 at the locks.

I have to say, for having very little to offer visitors from a travel standpoint, Minnesota has a great tourist information center. Full of personal anecdotes from the workers about their favorite places to go in Minnesota. They all seemed pretty boring, but at least you knew the proprietors really cared about their state.

Soon we came upon an absolutely giant wind farm. I've seen these towering windmills in two's and three's before, and even the occasional grouping of more, but our little car was literally surrounded on every side by energy producing wind devices. It was truly impressive.

Not quite as impressive, however, as our first real scheduled stop on this trip: the SPAM Museum.!
We pulled into the parking lot and were instructed to park "wherever it said SPAM".

The SPAM museum had many educational exhibits about the famous meat product, like an entire corner set aside in praise of the Monty Python Singing Viking SPAM skit. There was a "race your friends" SPAM production game...


a huge wall of SPAM...

and of course, a SPAM mascot.

We said goodbye tot he SPAM museum and went on to find other adventures. In the meantime, we tuned in the radio in order to listen to our triumphant Michigan Wolverine football team kick the snot out of the Western Michigan Broncos. Go Blue! Their decisive victory would keep Handler 1 calm later on when it was determined that the Woodward Stakes were not being broadcast. Alas.

We next stopped in the town of Blue Earth, MN which, despite being small, has an entire booklet describing the tourist "activities". Chief among these is the World's Tallest Jolly Green Giant statute.

We stopped for a late lunch and listened to the rest of the game.

It was soon after that when we saw our first billboard advertising the world famous Wall Drug (only 355 miles away!), which we would be visiting on the following morning, and crossed into South Dakota. There was no definitive transition from MN into SD, in fact, if you didn't have a sign welcoming you placed between two otherwise identical fields of corn, you'd never know you'd skipped over state lines.

Our first stop in this great state was the Corn Palace!

It's a community hall and local high school gym decked out annually entirely in corn products.

The people of Mitchell, SD would like you to know they are not, and never have been, Nazis.

Yeah, we don't get it either.

After that, we had dinner at a local dive bar with many patrons cheering on the country singer entertainment. They particularly seemed to like the song about the guy trying to find the guy who shot his "Pa". We then hopped back on the road and drove through the nightscape of nothing, until we reached our hotel destination in SD. We had invested a whole extra $8 to get a jacuzzi room, so we enjoyed the comforts of water jets before falling into bed and calling it a night.

Quote of the Day:

"There's nothing wrong, I just suddenly realized where Lunchables come from"- Handler 1, upon trying the single serving SPAM packet.