Road Trip April - Day 26

April 7th 2026 (Tuesday)

Early start as Fred had a business call scheduled then it was time to hit the road, Fred's planning to do 517 Miles today - not sure that's gonna happen, but whatever, it is going to be a loooong day travelling on our route along I90. 

First stop on the way was to see the Dignity of Earth & Sky sculpture at Chamberlain, SD.

A rather impressive 50ft tall statue that is visible from I90. Unfortunately it was blowing a gale and bitterly bone-chilling cold when we visited and the visitors information centre was still closed for the winter season, but I am pleased we got to see it, although I wish it had been a little bit sunnier to really bring the colours in the sculture come alive. I gather it is illuminated at night too, I bet that looks a beautiful sight too to see... maybe one day we will come back to get the chance. 

The nightspot that we're hoping to get to is another Loves Travel Stop and is still over 300 miles / 4.5hrs away and the strong side wind is making the drive a little hard work for Fred to keep in a relatively straight line!

Random note, and a bit of amusement, on this very long, very dull, straight, relatively flat drive. We kept seeing advert boards at regular intervals for the Wall Drug Store that we visited yesterday (read blog post), so we started counting them and calculating the distance - the last bill board advertising the place we saw was over 272 miles away from the Wall Drug Store itself!! - now that's persistent advertising!!! 

But other than the 1880 Town which did look interesting to visit, had it been open, there really is NOTHING to see or do on this road and it is very, very long, very, very dull and very, very straight!

Along this route if you are lucky you can see the 'skeleton man walking skeleton dinosaur' sculpture, it's not somewhere you stop & look at, but rather as you're cruising on by. Travelling east on the I-90 I believe is the best way to see it, so we were lucky to capture it as an unexpected treat on this otherwise very dull road.

Cheapest gas price seen today was $3.33. Yesterday in Rapid City we'd had to pay $3.79, but the previous days it had been was $3.29! The prices had gone up 0.50 cents overnight! - Iran war? Big possibility or they are just getting ready for tourist season. The ongoing search for reasonably priced fuel is an every day challenge. But we regularly remind ourselves that fuel is still way cheaper here in the US than back in the UK.

Then tonight, I found an amazing place for us to visit in Minnesota, alas it was closed due to the time of night and to get Fred to agree to the detour I had to persuade him with a Dairy Queen blizzard treat (he didn't take much persuading!). So, here we are, it's absolutely freezing outside, and here we are sat in the dark with our ice cream, looking out upon the Green Giant, sweetcorn man here in Blue Earth, MN!!

This brings back many nostalgic memories from our childhood so of course I had to add it to our "must see" list. Turns out there's a whole museum in dedication of the Green Giant canning factory and you can read more about it here. Unfortunately we couldn't stay the night to visit the museum in the morning and we didn't take many photos as it is unbelievably cold outside!!!!!! 

We finally arrived at our rest stop destination about 10.30pm-ish, We've travelled over 500 miles today and it was time for some much needed sleep. Fingers crossed the strong winds will die down for tomorrow's journey.

Road Trip Day 26 - we've driven approximately 517 Miles today!