A New Driver, A Big Mouse, The Mississippi River,  Windmills and Giant Pillows

Today was full of all of these things.  Wisconsin is known for cheese.  We hadn't really encountered any up till today, so we decided to stop at a touristy spot called the Mouse House.  We found many types of cheese and tried some samples.  We got our cheese fix which included two kinds of cheese curd, and some garlic herb cheddar for some burgers later. It was touristy and "cheesy" but a tasty stop to say the least.

On our drive out of Wisconsin, we got to a big river and realized it was the Mississippi.  It ushered us into the state of Minnesota.  We were surprised (or forgot our geography) that the river was this far north.  We guessed it had to start somewhere, but we always associated it as a southern river that was more east than Minnesota. If we had to nickname Minnesota, we would call it the Windmill State.  There were windmills everywhere throughout our whole drive.  In one area Carolyn counted 59 in a 1/2 mile of road and she couldn't count them fast enough.  That was only one side of the road.  They were spinning fast with the wind from the crazy storm we hit with huge drops of rain and lightening you could see for miles.  Mitch was driving his first leg of the trip and did a great job keeping us on the road despite the weather.  There wasn't much traffic but there was a lot of farmland.  On our journey through the state, we saw farmland, trees in the middle of the farmland that surrounded the farm's homestead and of course, the windmills.  It was like a movie reel that kept playing the same background scenery.

We arrived in Brandon, South Dakota around 4:45 to stay at a Yogi Bear Campground.  Yogi himself appeared riding around on a golf cart.  We swam and made some hot dogs around a campfire that Mitch built.  Caris wanted to go to the giant jumping pillow at the campground, so we all joined her. There's a pix below of Caris and Mitch jumping.  If we can, we'll post the video. While we are tired, we are looking forward to the Corn Palace and Mount Rushmore tomorrow

Goodbye to Wisconsin KOA

 Here's our day's journey on the GPS

 The mighty Mississippi

 Mitch's first leg of the trip.

 Rain storm

 Many miles of windmills

.The giant jumping pillow