After a quiet night in Worthington, Minnesota, we continued our trek west into South Dakota. It warmed up to around 80 degrees and was sunny most of the day, a good day for a drive. We drove 200 miles.

South Dakota Border

The first city across the MN/SD border is Sioux Falls. This is where our mail forwarding company is, so we made a stop there to pick up our mail. From now on they will hold our mail for us until we tell them where to ship it to us.

Driving west on Interstate 90 on the eastern half of the state is long and flat and boring, lots of large corn fields. There are a few little tourist attractions, but nothing that we were interested in. We even passed up the World’s Only Corn Palace in Mitchel, as we have been there a few times before. For a link to last year’s blog about that click here.

The Missouri River divides South Dakota right down the middle. As we approach the river there is a very nice rest area with a visitor center and a scenic overlook. From here you can see the river and three bridges that cross it.

Missouri River, Chamberlain, South Dakota

Missouri River, Chamberlain, South Dakota

Just across the bridge is the city of Chamberlain. Here we find Al’s Oasis, a popular stop on the Interstate with a grocery store, a nice restaurant, clothing store, a bakery, and more. And the coffee is still only 5 cents.

Al’s Oasis

Across the street from Al’s Oasis they have a large parking lot striped for over-size vehicles. We are allowed to stay overnight here for free so that’s what we are going to do tonight.

Al’s Oasis

• Gasoline:  $96 @ $3.09
• Lodging:   free