21 September

Winterset, Madison County, Iowa

During our last trip to the US, we had a chat with a couple of fellow travellers in a bar in Atlantic City (where else?). When we told them that we planned to drive Route 66, they commented “... have you ever seen 2000 miles of corn?” Well, we haven't even started on Route 66 yet and we've probably already seen ENOUGH corn. Never mind. The scale of it all is interesting in itself.

Why Winterset? Remember “The Bridges of Madison County”? That's one reason. The second is that John Wayne was born here in a small house on South Second Street in 1907. A must see!

20 September

Sioux Falls, South Dakota

The small town of Wall, SD, where we spent the night last night, is famous for just one thing. The Wall Drug Store.

It was the depths of the depression when Ted and Dorothy Hustead bought the Wall Drug store. “Tin Lizzies” chugged along Route 16A, loaded with suitcases and everything else families could load on as they searched for work. Business was slow until, one day, Dorothy figured out that travellers would make a stop for cold water. Free ice-cold water. That was in 1936. Today, the Wall Drug store boasts more than 2 million visitors a year. It is the main industry in Wall. Aside from motels! If the whole population of the town checked into a motel for the night, there would still be over 400 vacant beds! Sure, many locals complain about the hundreds of advertising signs that litter the Interstate advertising the Wall Drug, but you've got to admire their spirit. And their prices. We had an all you can eat breakfast for $7.00 each!

Leaving Wall, we headed off to the Badlands of South Dakota, a moonscape of grey and pink rock canyons that, in the morning light, kept our shutters clicking!