Tue, June 9th, 2009
Today was just another marathon drive and the kids did just wonderful. Yes, there were periods of whining and fighting, but overall, it wasn’t too bad.
We had thought we will fit in some more Chicago sight seeing in the morning before leaving, but it was a cloudy and foggy day, so decided to skip that. So, we started driving right after breakfast. Getting out of Chicago was slow, but not nearly as bad as getting in. The drive through Illinois was pretty boring, but luckily it was short. There were numerous toll booths along the way asking for $0.5 to $1.25 each, which was annoying. We missed one because we blindly followed the lots of cars in front of us, but they all had iPass, I guess. We now have to find a way to pay back that 80c with in 7 days. I like the NY/NJ system better. You get a card marking your point of entry into the highway. And depending on where you exit (and hence, how far you drove on the thruway), it just charges a lump sum – longer you drive on the thru way, higher the amount. This is much more efficient instead of going through a dozen toll booths in a short amount of time.
Wisconsin was quite beautiful. Lots of rolling green meadows with cows grazing. I enjoyed the serene scenery. Not sure why, but it didn’t occur to me to either take pictures or record anything during the drive 
. The highlight of the drive for PK was crossing the Mississippi river, more as a milestone than any other significance. The state line goes right through the river and as soon as we crossed over, we were in Minnesota.
The first exit in Minnesota leads to a beautiful welcome center and rest stop. It is right on the river with lots of picnic benches facing the river. There are some green hills around too and it is a very picturesque spot. We stopped for a late lunch here. This was almost the mid point of the day’s drive. We started a movie for the kids and started out again. In several places, for long distances, one lane was closed out with cones, even though there was no visible construction. In the town of Dexter, we drove by a really huge windmill farm. Was quite an impressive sight. As we neared the eastern part of the state, it was very flat and one could see the plains far and wide. One curious thing was we kept seeing these billboards which said “Wall drug 355 miles away” etc and wondered what it was.
Other thing I noticed is that we had not paid any tolls once past Illinois. From home to Illinois, we paid quite a bit in tolls.
As soon as we entered South Dakota, Sioux falls was just beyond the border and was going to be our home for the night. We didn’t think it was possible to get lost in a small town like Sioux falls, but we proved it could happen. After some searching, we located an Indian restaurant, had dinner there (quite good too) and checked into the hotel.
Miles driven today: 593
States : IL, WI, MN, SD
