Day 3 (Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota)

     We started out from Cedar Rapids Iowa this morning. Don't stay at the Super 8 there! It was just ok...
We had breakfast across the street at Perkins and that was very good. A little pricey, but nice. We put Brandon, South Dakota into the GPS and away we went.

     We drove for quite sometime before becoming quite bored! So we picked a town and decided to stop at the visitor center and have a look around town. We ended up at Nashua, IA.

      At the visitor center we met Glen and Sharon who talked with us about the area. Glen and Sharon have lived in Iowa their entire lives. Glen spoke of a brief two year period when he was first married to Sharon when they had lived in Waterloo, IA. Now they live in Nashua and work here at the visitors center that was built as a replica of the train station the town had in 1916. I spoke to them bit and told them I was from NY and they told me they have a son who is currently in Lowman, NY working. They happily posed for a picture for me!

 Glen made sure to let me know about some of the interesting sights around town. He spoke to me about the Little Brown Church down the road. He told me that some 73,000 couples had gotten married over there! He even joked that if I wanted to get married over there, the pastor of the church lived just down the road. :) So, of course we had to check out this little brown church.

What a cute church!! It was built in 1860-1864. 

The inside of the church was very quaint. I learned from talking to Glen that although it is an attraction for the area, they still hold service in there once a week on Sunday. I wish we would have been in the area for that!

Each window had beautiful little sunflowers in tiny vases and above them on the walls were little gas lamps that lit the church. There were so many little details that added to the charm of this church. 

All in all we stayed here about an hour and took pictures in and around the church. It was definitely well worth the little side trip, if only to get a break from driving hours on end..

When we were done, we headed back onto the highway. "Go west young man!" (couldn't resist saying it!)

Back on the road and after driving for another few hundred miles, I had a sort of epiphany. People talk about doing lots of things. But it always seems that life gets in the way of us doing those things. Most people live their whole lives without stopping to "smell the roses". So we made it a point to make sure we did just that!

 The views in the mid-west are absolutely stunning! Lots of windmills, corn, hay-bales, dirt roads, and farms. We had so much fun taking pictures and driving around enjoying life. It is so difficult for me to grasp the enormity of the U.S. It was so flat out here through Iowa and all I kept thinking was that for all the miles that we can see, there are miles and miles more that we can't. What a great experience to be able to drive through all of this beauty!!!

After driving for many hours through Iowa, we finally came into Minnesota! They had the most interesting visitors Center. It was shaped like a barn!!

The people there were extremely nice and took the time to talk with new people who walked in the door and also had everyone they talked to sign the visitors log to see where people where coming from. 

A few more minutes down the road, we finally hit Minnesota. Did I mention the west is flat?! 

Only a few hours driving time and we had reached our destination in South Dakota. I met up with my friend Emily and her fiance Jerroll. We spent a few hours catching up, having some pizza and looking at pictures of her trip to Ireland before heading out again. It was so good to see her! We had worked together a little over a year ago and she moved onward and upward out west. It was sad to say goodbye, but she promised she would come visit me up in Alaska!! 

She's so beautiful!!! Love you Em!!! 

We left her house and headed for Brookings, SD where we will be catching route 14 in the morning to head out to see where Laura Ingals Wilder lived. Hoping to get to Badlands, and Mt. Rushmore also, but we'll see how much we can do. We may have to spend two days in SD. Not a problem... It's a nice state!

--Blessings