Rapid City to Sherburn, Minnesota

Rapid City is in the southwest corner of South Dakota. I think it was one of my favourite places, geographically speaking, on our entire drive.The forests were more parklike - the trees were spaced farther apart and you could see deeper into the bush. There were lovely forest meadows and creeks and rivers and few cars. Turns out a lot of kids had already started back to school and so there were fewer vacationing families on the road than we had expected.
 We headed southwest about 45 minutes to Mt. Rushmore. We only had time for a quick drive-by then north and east to our next stop of Sherburn, Minnesota.

The forests of South Dakota became the deserts of South Dakota which, in turn, became the cornfields of Minnesota. Minnesota is all about corn...well the southern part, at least.  They are just on the the edge of the drought, according to our host for the evening, Mr. Norman Kittleson. The Kittlesons (Norm and Pennie) are retired dairy farmers. I believe Norm said he himself was born in 1923. The b&b was built in 1848 and was originally a stagecoach inn called The Four Columns Inn.  Norm's dad bought the property in the early 1900's. Norm and Pennie renovated the place and raised a family in it and now run a b&b with the same name.  We walked along the farm road as twilight was coming on just to stretch our legs a bit. We saw a couple of interesting little birds and I heard, but didn't see, a pheasant. The corn stretched on for miles and miles and miles.