South Dakota and Nebraska

We stayed at Yankton, SD at a COE campground. I had stayed here in 2004 when I did the Lewis and Clark Trail. Very relaxing, on a lake under cottonwood trees. It was very buggy here. Our first night we had a front come thru and had a big thunderstorm.

Monday we drove into Nebraska to Plainview to the Klown Museum. Bob had donated clowns to them and we wanted to see it. They have 4535 clowns and are expecting 2 more collections soon.

On our way home we stopped at an Ethenol processing plant and asked if they offer tours.
I was surprised to see it was available a long time ago too. They graciously found someone who took us around and told us about the process. Truck loads of corn are brought in. During the year they produce 60 million gallons of ethenol. We passed field after field of corn growing as far as the eye can see and yet this plant only purchases 10% of the yield. They work year round 24/7.

We left Yankton and continued west. First we were going to stop at Picktown and take the toad to Mitchell for the Corn Palace. We couldn't find the COE park we wanted to park at so we kept going. Entered Nebraska and followed RT 12 and 20 across northern NE. Planned to stay at the city park in Valentine but the road to it said no trucks and since we are as big as one we continued on to Cody's city park. The maintenance man was there within minutes of us parking to open the restrooms but we told him we needed nothing but where a good restaurant was. He pointed us in the direction to the only bar and grill in town where Tuesday was Taco night. We are definitely in ranch country and chatted with the young rancher next to us. We learned a lot. His ranch is owned by a big company. He has 50 sections and each section is 640 acres. Rides a lot on his horse to round them up. Did I mention the taco's where good too.

We continued on across NE and stopped at Gordon and visited the Cowboy Museum. It seems the Parker's were there also.
We continued on to the Museum of the Fur Trader's. The rancher last night said to be sure and stop and we were glad we did. It took us a couple of hours it was so interesting.
These facts we found to be interesting.
It's east of Chadron. We continued on and parked at the city park in Crawford. Took the car to see the Toadstool Geological Park about 20 miles north on mostly dirt roads. There we took a mile loop hike thru the "badlands".

Our last day in NE we stopped at the Agate Fossil Monument. There were a bunch of kids there and we sat in with them on a special lecture by a ranger. She passed many items around that Indians would have used centuries ago for a hands on experience. We started on the trail to the fossil dig site but I turned around and let Bob continue as it was soooo hot out. He took this picture of our rig in the parking lot. We went on to the city park at Mitchell, removed the car and drove over to Scottsbluff National Monument. Took a short walk there then back at the MH hitched up and drove to Torrington WY. WE ARE OFFICIALLY WEST!