As we had charged on the way in to Omaha, last night, there was no need to charge in the morning. So, we ended up leaving Omaha not finding an Oracle or a Mutual. We headed North out of Omaha, and crossed quickly back into Iowa to head up Interstate 29 to Sioux City. We charged at another Electrify America in Sioux City, this one at a “Fareway Meat and Grocery” where we picked up food for lunch. Because the liquor laws differ from state to state, I was not entirely surprised, but still tickled to see liquor in the grocery store. They even had a “house brand” rye, so I gave in to temptation and brought that along for the ride. I wish I could tell you how delightful the house rye is from a supermarket in Iowa, but sadly, it’s maybe a little less good than you might expect given that description. But at least I have a story to go with it!
Since North Dakota was our “destination” on this trip, it felt great to enter South Dakota. And only on day 4. We developed a confidence that we could make it to our scheduled Airbnb in ND by the weekend!
Ever since Sam was little, Carolyn wanted to share the “Little House” books with her, and had even considered a trip specifically for following in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s footsteps. So, it came as no surprise that Carolyn suggested that we “swing by” De Smet, SD, the setting of “Little House on the Prairie.” What did surprise me was how chill Carolyn was about our arrival time. Between morning work and afternoon/evening travel our days had been shifting late so that we were checking out of the hotel about as late as they’d let us, and not rolling in to the next one until late that evening. So, our estime had us rolling into De Smet right about 5:30, just when the info center and gift shop closes. Sure enough, just as we were parking, one of the historical interpreters was switching the sign from “Open” to “Closed”. We had fun poking around the grounds and reading the placards, as Carolyn attached parts of the stories that she knew well from her childhood to a physical place in the real world. Having done so, we then continued to stretch our legs and walk around the “Little Town on the Prarie” and its broad main street and spy other artifacts featured in or related to Laura’s stories. We also came across a small Rosie the Riveter statue. Of course, that’s who Rosie the Rivian is named for, so we had to take a picture of her! Finally, we hopped back in Rosie and headed out to the Ingalls grave site to see where Laura’s parents were buried before getting back on the road.
I got a little bit worried about charging as there’s really no charging infrastructure in most of South Dakota – mostly just along the major cross-state thoroughfare, I-90. Fortunately, we were still over 20% SOC when we pulled into Mitchell, SD to re-join 90. And, of course, you can’t go to Mitchell, SD without a visit to The World’s Only Corn Palace, this year featuring famous South Dakotans.
The kitchen had already closed at our first choice restaurant. Fortunately, there was another place right across the street that was open, so we grabbed a table at the Scorecard Pub & Grille and ate outside.
On this trip, we brought a Rand McNally Road Atlas and used it a lot more than we had originally anticipated given GPS/Waze/Google Maps/Rivian navigation, etc. One of the neat little additions it had was regional food specialties of each state. For South Dakota, one of those was “Chislic.” Well, Scoreboard offered it, and where something was available and sounded even remotely palatable to me, I made an effort to try the regional cuisine. I’m down with some deep-fried beef! It was good, I can see why it became the “official state ’nosh’ of South Dakota as of March 2018 (Thank you, Wikipedia!)”. While there, we fell into conversation with a couple of locals who were entertaining. They gave us some opinions. OK, they gave us lots of opinions, but some of them were on target for the sorts of things relevant to our planned itinerary, including where we ended up eating our brunch the next day.
But, we couldn’t dawdle too long as we still needed to make it to our “resort” in Chamberlain. It turned out it was actually across the Missouri River in Oacoma. Despite “Resort” in the name, our lodging that night was … adequate. It was a fine place, it was just one of those places where maintenance didn’t manage to entirely keep up with the wear and tear of years and multitudes, and just a bit frayed around the edges. It was definitely situated nicely against the water, and we did little there besides crash for the night. OK, well, Carolyn did get out for a walk in the morning, and I made an effort to remove some of the major population of insect bodies that Rosie had managed to accumulate.
