When I asked about a cabin
last night, the man checking us in said it was supposed to rain so upgrading
from a tent might keep us drier. Good
call because it didn’t just rain, it poured! And the wind came up, too. I’m not sure if it was the thunder and
lightning or the screen door banging open that woke me up. But at that point we battened down the
hatches (screen door and window) and drifted back to sleep with the rain
beating down on the roof. Huge puddles
in the parking lot this morning so the rain was substantial.
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It was in the high 50’s and
sunny when we woke up…felt a bit on the cool side after sleeping in a closed up
cabin for the last few hours of the night.
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In Monday's journal post I
mentioned that we would be stopping Tuesday night in Jackson, MN. Got a message from Deb Nuttall this morning
saying that her family lived in Jackson when she was in 5th
grade. She couldn’t remember the
address but remembered that the house was a Cape Cod style and that she loved
that house. I texted that she had about
8 hours to let her memories simmer and to text me any information that
surfaced. She talked to her mom and
updated me with a possible address. We
now had a mission when we reached Jackson.
Got to Jackson, then plugged
the address into Biker Girl…she indicated that the street existed but the house
number didn’t. Oh, well, let’s just take a ride over to Brown St. and see what we
find. First let me Google what a Cape
Cod style of house looks like.
Brown Street was 3 blocks
long…we cruised those 3 blocks several times and additionally cruised around
the neighboring streets to see if Brown Street picked up somewhere else. Talk about feeling conspicuous as we slowly
and loudly stalked the neighborhood. I
finally saw a house that looked Cape Cod-ish, took a picture of it and quickly
left. Sent the picture to Deb who thinks
we might have hit the jackpot but she’ll check with her mom to confirm. 😊
We’re here until tomorrow morning so we can do another recon if
needed….
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The bulk of our route today
was on SD-34, a state highway through farm country. Not 10 miles down the road we saw two eagles
in a dead tree…had to stop to get pictures. Then another 30 miles down the road we came
across the Big Bend Dam, a hydroelectric plant.
We took the public access road down to the river and watched as pelicans,
seagulls, cormorants and maybe a heron or two took advantage of the abundance
of fish near the base of the dam. Couldn’t help myself…took too many pictures of
these birds, also.
However, there was no information about the
dam so I turned to Google to get my need-to-know fix. Wikipedia has
this to say: Big Bend
Dam is a major embankment rolled-earth dam on the Missouri River in
Central South Dakota, United States,
creating Lake Sharpe. The dam was constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as part
of the Pick-Sloan Plan for Missouri watershed development
authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1944. Construction began
in 1959 and the embankment was completed in July 1963. Power generation began
at the facility in 1964 and the entire complex was completed in 1966 at a total
cost of $107 million. The hydroelectric plant generates 493,300 kilowatts of
electricity at maximum capacity, with an annual production of 969 million
kilowatt hours, and meets peak-hour demand for power within the Missouri River Basin.
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Signs outside of Wessington Springs, SD,
announce that it is the hometown of Kyle Evans, the South Dakota
Troubadour. Neither of us had a clue
about him. The e-edition of the Black
Hills Pioneer gave me an overview:
Kyle Evans, who was
born Kyle Fagerhaug, was killed after a wreck east of Wessington Springs on
state Highway 34 late Wednesday, according to the South Dakota Highway Patrol
office in Aberdeen.
His motorcycle
struck a deer at about 11:30 p.m., authorities said. Evans was taken to the Wessington Springs
hospital, where he was pronounced dead early Thursday.
Evans and his band,
the Company Cowboys, were popular on the rodeo circuit and had been together
more than 30 years. Evans also was a solo recording artist and was the official
troubadour for the state's centennial celebration in 1989. He traveled the
state and wrote songs about South Dakota.
His band had
performed at the Stampede Rodeo in Mitchell for many years as well.
He was born
in 1941 and was 54 at the time of his death.
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Another interesting thing about Wessington
Springs (population 956) is that it appears to have only two stop signs…one at
the end of the City Hall driveway and the second at the intersection of SD-34
and Dakota Avenue. All other
intersections have Yield signs. People in Wessington Springs must be a courteous bunch. 😎
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When we travel I like to take
pictures of us standing in front of state welcome signs. However, that hasn’t
been possible this trip because the back roads we’ve traveled apparently don’t
warrant a state sign. The only
indication is a “welcome to ….” greeting from Rapunzel. It was rather confusing on the trip out because
we were in Iowa when we thought we were in Minnesota, then back into Minnesota
and then Iowa again before we even knew we weren’t in Minnesota to begin
with. Confusing! And besides the Rapunzel thing, the only
indication we had that we had crossed into South Dakota was that a few miles I
realized it didn’t smell like pigs anymore…it smelled like grain. So today when we cruised past the Minnesota
sign, it was an opportunity to practice my U-turn skills and get the
picture. Kim noticed the South Dakota
state sign so, first, it was a photo op at the South Dakota sign and then the
Minnesota sign. Then we cruised on
into Minnesota, happily knowing which state we were in. 😊
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Small Town of the Day: Vilas, South Dakota…population 19
Even though it was only about 125 miles into our day when I saw the
Vilas sign with the population number, I was 99% sure we had a winner. And from what I saw, those 19 people had to
go to a neighboring town to buy gas, food, clothes, toilet paper, etc. Vilas has three roads turning off SD-34…first
was Vilas Ave A, then came Vilas Ave B and then there was Vilas Street.
I have another Small Town Honorable Mention today: Fedora,
SD gets an Honorable Mention for Best
Small Town Name. I like the name… 😊
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Tuesday miles: 276 miles
Total miles: 2144 miles
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