I 70

Interstate 70 will get you from Baltimore to south of Salt Lake City including stops in St. Louis, Kansas City, and Denver.

I 80

Interstate 80 connects New York City with San Francisco. Fuel to burn, roads to drive!

Wee Town

Stop at Wee Town and have a small soda. Wee Town is in Pierce County in Northern Nebraska. Wee Town is a very small town with one building.

Missouri River

The Missouri River (shown above) slices the state of South Dakota in half. Folks from the state simply refer refer to the eastern half as "East River" and the western half as "West River".

I 90

Interstate 90 is the northern most complete east-west corridor across the United States. It connects Boston with Seattle. Drive on!

Frozen Hay moving down the Road

South Dakota - the Rushmore State

Snowmobiles Rule

Snowmobiling is a popular winter activity as evident from the mass of tracks carved in this snow covered ditch. Some communities in the north have tried to further restrict snowmobiling because it's a bit of environmental diaster and an extremely noisey affair. It's actually quite fun if you bundle up.

Another shot of the frozen lake

The ice at Lake Herman is several feet deep. Pleanty deep to walk on or drive a truck on. Absent is the usual volume of ice fishing shacks. Perhaps the fish are not biting. Please note the bright sun shining in the Sunshine State. There is always plenty of open sky in South Dakota.

Lake County, South Dakota

Lake County boasts many lakes. The photograph below is of Lake Herman. Several decades ago an air pumping project was put together on Lake Herman to help it avoid the massive fish winterkill caused by cold conditions and multiple feet of ice build-up. Air is pumped into the lake during the winter months to help aerate the water and causes part of the ice covered lake to be open. Great for fish not so great for unsuspecting snowmobilers.

Animals ...

These cows were found feeding in a corn field that was harvested only months beforehand. These are beef cattle that will some day provide delicious steaks and hamburgers for you and me.

Animals

This horse and it's owner were found walking up and down a gravel road in Lake County. The owner told me the Vet had visited the horse today and told the owner that the horse was "impacted" (a bellyache for horses). When a horse's pipes are backed up it will exhibit signs of colic. Feed is the most frequent cause of impaction, and the lack of water is another culprit. The owner was walking the horse to help loosen the intestinal track.

Farming in Eastern South Dakota

This is a fairly typical farm in the eastern part of the state. The silo is in the center of the frame. A silo is generally used to store feed for livestock. This farm is primarily used for the production of beef cattle. In the foreground you can see small mounds of siledge (chopped corn and stalks) used to feed growing cattle. They are covered with sheet of durable plastic to protect the feed from the elements. Old automobile tires provide the weight to keep the plastic in place. Farms and farm houses are almost always surrounded by "shelter belts" or groves of trees to cut the wind and provide a shield from the weather extremes. To the left of the frame is a modern barn made of corrugated metal used to house farm machinery. The metal buildings are a durable alternative to the wood barns of yesterday.

New Development near the edge of Town

These new homes I discovered on the western edge of town near a golf course. The houses are enormous, so are the yards. The street is un-improved and a bit of a mud pit thanks to the warm sunshine. As you can see old growth trees are in short supply here. The praire wind howls pretty much everyday of the year bringing extremely cold temperatures in the winter and some relief during the hot summer months. Most people are pretty shocked by the massive temperature shift from summer to winter. It is not uncommon for the thermometor to read over 100 degrees in the summer and less than 0 degrees in the winter.

Main Street - Madison, SD

This is Egan Avenue, the main street of my home town in South Dakota. On this particular corner there are bars on all four corners. The rest of the businesses are pretty typical in rural American settings. There is a barber shop, hardware store, several cafes, small department stores, a thrift store, pharmacy, etc.. The sun had melted a lot of the snow off, wet pavement remains.

A Man With A Good Car Needs No Justification

Introducing the Chevy Malibu in fabulous snowflake White, this car is ready for action.

Glossary of Super-Fun Road Trip Terms for your Next Car Adventure

1. Cruise Control Monkey - Fellow motorist obsessed with staying locked into his cruise control speed regardless of the inconvenience (let alone unsafe conditions) it causes others. You know the guy driving in the fast lane -passing cars in slow motion because they refuse to adjust their speed while you and a host of others behind you wait for their slow pass so you can finally get around him. Used in a sentence: I wish that cruise control monkey would get out of my way.

2. The Onslaught - The act of looking in your rear view mirror to see a wave of swiftly moving traffic approaching. This normally happens as you approach the heart of a metropolitan area. Used in a sentence: I can see the onslaught and it doesn’t look good.

3. Jamming – The act of slow passing a vehicle in the passing lane while essentially forcing them to slow down to avoid hitting a much slower traveling vehicle such as a semi-truck in the outside lane. Used in a sentence: I hope that bastard stops jamming me.

4. Squirrelly Rig – Any pickup truck pulling a mostly (or completely) empty trailer at a high rate of speed. The trailer will have a tendency to skip down the highway bouncing from side to side and appear to want to come un-hitched from the truck’s bumper. Used in a sentence: That squirrelly rig looks like it’s going to hit my car.

5. Drop the Hammer – (this term my friend, the Colonel made up). Approaching an intersection with a signal light at a high rate of speed as you sense the light is about to change from green to yellow to red. This is done so you will not have to miss the light. Obviously you can only drop the hammer when you are the lead car; frequently the car ahead of you will hesitate and not drop the hammer preventing you from crossing the intersection and will have to wait for the signal light to cycle through. Used in a sentence: I wish that fool ahead of me would’ve dropped the hammer because I’m late for work.

6. Shitbox- Any four cylinder automobile that has trouble keeping pace in normal metropolitan freeway traffic scenarios. While these automobiles are more fuel efficient than their counterparts, they actually create hazards because of their lack of horsepower (acceleration capabilities). Used in a sentence: That fleet of shitboxs is making a mess of rush hour today.

7. Gumming up the Works – (this term my friend, the Colonel made up). “Gumming” refers to motorists who lack rudimentary driving skills or are unable to pay attention to the road or drive automobiles that are not road worthy OR any combination of the former AND therefore create less than ideal road/driving conditions for everyone else. Used in a sentence: That jackass driving the pickup full of lawn mowers is gumming up the works.

8. Hitting the Wall – The phenomenon of driving into a wave of near stand still traffic. This is a common occurrence when driving on the freeway INTO a metropolitan city especially during the rush hour parts of the weekday. Used in a sentence: It was five o’clock in Chicago and I hit the wall.

9. Grabbing Some Brake – Essentially what you do before you are “hitting the wall” but furthermore anytime a motorist has to de-accelerate very quickly. Used in a sentence: I saw that fool ahead of me grabbing some brake.

10. False Rush Hour – A false sense of street and freeway “hectic ness” during peak times of the day when in fact no major frenzy exists. Memphis has false rush hour, Los Angeles and Boston do not. Used in a sentence: I thought it would take me a long time to get here but it was really just false rush hour.

i am south dakota

formerly the other sunshine state (no really)
currently the rushmore state
my hometown Madison was founded in 1873 and named for Madison, Wisconsin, by William Van Epps, because near-by lakes reminded people of the Wisconsin city. Madison is located in Lake County (in the Eastern part of the state) where there are a number of lakes and the fish are biting.