We back tracked east just a few miles on Route 9 E to US 71
N. It was on this corner, were you can find Superior 71 Drive-in Theater. It
was constructed almost 10 years ago and is the #3 thing to do in Spirit Lake on
Trip Advisor! This theater is surrounded by soybean fields, since they rotate
crops, last year it was surrounded by corn! They run double features with
bright & clear digital projection and sound! They run first rate movies, I think ... their web site said they are currently showing Mission Impossible & Skyscraper, but the marquee in the picture lists different movies?!
On US 71, we left Iowa and drove into Minnesota, our 7th
state on this trip, and arrived in the town of Jackson, Minnesota. It is on the
site of the earliest white settlement within the area of this county, founded
and named Springfield in the summer of 1856. It consisted of a log store
building on the west side of the Des Moines River and a few cabins, quite
scattered, on the east side. Several of its settlers were killed, March 26,
1857, by a band of Dakota under the leadership of Inkpaduta, coming from their
skirmish with many settlers at Spirit Lake, Iowa. Soon afterward the site of Springfield
was renamed Jackson, and on May 23 of that year it was designated to be the
county seat by the act establishing this county. But the financial panic of
1857 checked immigration, the Civil War followed, and the village was not
platted until the fall of 1866. It was incorporated in 1881. A post office
called Jackson has been in operation since 1858. They have had a ton of rain here and the park is flooded.
I-90 W is also known as Prairie Passage, for a portion of
its route. Minnesota, in partnership
with five other states, have developed a corridor of roads called “Prairie
Passage” to protect and restore remnants of the prairie, and to draw today’s
travelers to explore this natural heritage at prairie sites along the route. In
Minnesota, the 600-mile Prairie Passage route meanders down the western side of
the state and along I-90 in the south. There was ample wide open prairies
visible on this route.
In Worthington, we saw our first sign for Wall Drug, only 355
more miles to go!
In Wilmont, Minnesota we saw hundreds of wind turbines. We
learned that it is the Nobles Wind Farm and Community Wind South. Nobles Power
Partners, has a 250- to 300-megawatt wind farm. It is great that we see a state
utilizing their natural resources like Iowa and Minnesota are. Too bad, we don’t
see more solar panels in Florida, utilizing our natural resources.
We had some motorcycles from Ohio pass us. It is the first
sign that we are getting closer to Sturgis.
Crossing from Minnesota over into South Dakota is nothing
exciting, but there is a brightly colored “Welcome” South Dakota sign.
We saw a plant that makes the wind turbines. Marmen believes
in the importance of renewable resources in the energy landscape. The company
started its activities in this area in 2002. In 2013, Marmen continued its
expansion with the opening of Marmen Energy, a plant dedicated to the
fabrication of wind towers, located in the city of Brandon, a suburb of Sioux
Falls, South Dakota. Marmen is recognized as one of North America’s largest
manufacturers of wind towers and is proud to have contributed to the growth and
development of the wind industry.
We saw the Porter Sculpture Park. It is the brain child of
Wayne Porter. Growing up, Wayne and his four siblings spent a lot of time
at his father’s blacksmith shop. His father taught him how to weld when he was
12 and after that he began making larger sculptures, welded together with found
metal. Wayne graduated from Miller High School, then attended college as a
Biology major, but changed his emphasis to graduate with degrees in Political Science
and History. He was accepted at the law school, but decided instead to return
to St. Lawrence and raise sheep, and continuing to work on larger and larger
sculptures in his father’s Blacksmith Shop.
Eventually, he sold the sheep and focused exclusively on his art. He
decided he was better suited to working on a sixty-foot, twenty-five ton
sculpture over the course of three years than he was to raising sheep.
When he would finish a sculpture he placed it by the
blacksmith shop in St Lawrence. Word spread through town and beyond, and he
began to get traffic coming off of Hwy 14. People wanted to see the sculptures
they had heard about from friends. When he had more sculptures then fit the
space, Wayne began to envision a sculpture park out in the open. When land
became available in Montrose, he was able to transport his sculptures there and
open the Porter Sculpture Park. It is punctuated by a 60-foot Steer head and huuuuggggge hammer. We saw it from the road, the $8 per person
entrance fee, seemed a bit steep to me.
At the Salem, South Dakota Rest stop, we discovered that South
Dakota’s rich western heritage is remembered along the Interstate highway
system at rest areas and tourist information centers. There is a large sculpture, the plaque indicates that: The
eight pillars which thrust skyward here merge in the framework of a tipi, the
Plains Indian home. The one-by-one-and-a-half foot concrete lodgepoles rise
fifty-six feet in the air and weigh six-and-one-half tons each. The structures
were executed in an architectural manner reflecting the spiritual lifestyle of
the nomadic Lakota (Sioux) Nation.
The Coteau des Prairie country to the south of this rest
area was one of the parts of South Dakota first settled by the Lakota tribes.
The Coteau country was formed by the last great glacier which reached across
South Dakota as far as the Missouri River. As it melted, thousands of
ground-out potholes became glacial lakes. To the southeast, Lakes Traverse and
Big Stone represent remnants of a mighty river which drained archaic Lake
Agassiz in Canada. Fur traders and voyageurs found this lake country to be
prime trapping and trading territory. They may have arrived in the area as
early as 1679. At that time the Santee Sioux consisting of the Wahpeton,
Sisseton, Mdewakanton, and Wahpekute tribes were moving into the lakes region.
We enjoyed a break and lunch at this rest stop.
We drove past Mitchell, we are coming back to see the Corn
Palace. So, not much about it now!
Along I-90, we pasted a large field of Sunflowers. There is
nothing more pretty than a
field of sunflowers in bloom!
We arrived in Plankinton, South Dakota at Hills RV Park, our
home for the next 5 days and 4 nights.
We are attending the South Dakota Good
Sam Rally.
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