Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota

Whew! Thankful for a good drive today! God answered my prayer for an overcast sky in the morning. Then he gave Minnesota lots and lots and lots of rain. My windshield wipers got quite the workout for a good part of the afternoon. Later it was sunshiny but fairly cool. Enjoy the pictures!

Me and my lil' buddy Paul.
Just getting started. Let's roll!
We listened to a sermon by Jeff Crippen in Oregon on prayer, and then later in the day
we listened to the first three chapters of "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien.

We traveled along behind this Chicago police car for quite a while in Illinois.
It felt like we were behind Andy Griffith or Barney Fife from Mayberry! ;)

This is about how hilly Wisconsin got as we were
                                 driving through it.                               

More Wisconsin...

And more Wisconsin...

We stopped at the Wisconsin Dells to fill up or tanks... and fill up our tummies with a delicious picnic lunch.

The Mississippi River!  

And this is about as hilly as Minnesota got... at least the parts that we drove through. 

By the Mississippi River was hilly and then it started to level out.

And then it was flat.

Coming into Minnesota there was a wind turbine farm and I thought,
"Hmmmmm, Minnesota must be into clean energy!"

And boy, oh boy! It seems like that is the case! There were wind turbines all throughout the state!

Getting ready to exit Minnesota and STILL seeing those wind turbines!
I'm really curious about them now so I think I'll be doing some research. :)

We arrived in Sioux Falls right about supper time.
All in all, we spent about 9 hours on the road today. Not a bad start! 

Looking forward to seeing the 

Badlands and Mt. Rushmore tomorrow!