July 10 - Mississippi River (Lake Pepin) in Lake City, MN; Walnut Grove, MN and Plum Creek; Corn Palace; Wall, SD

I got up early that morning, watched the sun rise across Lake Pepin from Lake City, MN.  It was a beautiful sunrise!!  I then picked up the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Highway (route 14) across Minnesota, stopping in Walnut Grove and going to see Plum Creek.  The LIWHH is the route that the family took as they moved from Pepin to Walnut Grove.  From there I drove almost all the way across South Dakota and ended up spending the night in Wall, SD.
 
 

The first three pictures are of the sunrise at Lake Pepin, viewed from Lake City, MN.  I may be partial as the photographer, but I am really very happy with how these pictures came out.  :-)
	This is a random picture from the road in Minnesota.  (I wish I had continued this practice all summer ... taking random pictures from the road to show the change in landscape at different places around the country.)
This is a picture of the sign that you see along the way as you are driving the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Highway.
	The next four pictures are from Walnut Grove, MN and the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum that is found in that town.
Next you see three pictures from Plum Creek, which is near where the Ingalls built their home while they lived in Walnut Grove (remember the book called "On the Banks of Plum Creek).  There is now a local park built around the site, complete with little league baseball diamonds, etc.
As I continued along the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Highway, I found this scene ... a field of windmills.  I have never seen them in the United States before.  I was fascinated ... and came to discover windmills in other parts of the country as well (most notably in California, which was in the middle of a power crisis at the time.)
	Okay ... I really didn't appreciate this "must see" just off the Mitchell, SD exit from I-90.  I would highly recommend that you just keep on driving!  I only included the picture because I wanted to prove that I know what I'm talking about when I say, "Don't bother to try to see it!"
The next four pictures are from one of the South Dakota "scenic overlook" stops along I-90.  I have to admit that my knowledge of geography is so limited that I was surprised to see that the Missouri River flows through South Dakota.  Interesting!
	And ... I can't begin to tell you how pleased I was to see this sign along the path from the parking area to the viewing overlook.  :-)  [Just in case the resolution doesn't render the picture legible, it says:  "Beware of Poisonous Snakes".]