Hearts in Hawai'i
Our Trip to South Dakota (2023)--Day 1
9/9/2023
On Our Way!
With all items checked off the "Departure Day" checklist, we left home at 8 a.m.. The Malibu was easy enough to get used to. Certain controls such as the cruise control were in different places than on my Corolla or Patty's Camry but they were easily figured out. I had loaded about 2,300 songs onto a flash drive a few days prior, and with the use of a USB to USB-C adapter, the info system recognized all those mp3's. With the playlist set to "shuffle" we would have a lot more music than we'd need on this trip.
Traffic on this first road day was relatively light. Being a Saturday, there was more traffic headed out of the Twin Cities than into the Twin Cities and the only slowdown we encountered was on US 169 near Shakopee where the annual Renaissance Festival was happening. This is an annual event which takes place each year from mid-August through the end of September. We had gone there in 2004--I enjoyed it, Patty didn't really take to it much. The highlight of that trip was seeing the comedy act Puke & Snot. They were hilarious!
Once we got through this mini-traffic jam, it was smooth sailing. The drive down highway 169 into Mankato reveals the Jolly Green Giant, a huge billboard featuring the likeness of the Green Giant pea mascot looming over the land. Seneca Foods purchased the Green Giant brand and closed the original canning factory in LeSueur in 1995,
Crossing the state border into South Dakota, I remarked to Patty that they should have a sign stating "Welcome to South Dakota--turn your clock back 75 years" in reference to Governor Kristi Noem and the state's backwards MAGAt policies. Traffic in Sioux Falls was light and, thanks to Siri and the maps program, we easily found our way to the Americinn in the northern part of the city.
The only glitch in our check-in was when the clerk couldn't find our reservation, requiring a retrieval of the printed copy from my luggage. A minor inconvenience and something you shouldn't have to do, but at least I printed a copy! That done, we were on our way to room 301. We were on the third floor of a four floor hotel but were on the very end where foot traffic in the hallway and its resultant noise would be at a minimum.
We were hungry! Luckily, Sioux Falls offers a plethora of places where you can fill up on grub, and we chose the Granite City Grille only a couple miles away. We knew about Granite City from our overnight stay in Eagan five years ago on our way to Maui and it was a safe choice.
Previous: 9/8/2023--Our Trip To South Dakota (2023)--Prologue
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last updated september 22, 2023
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