Allie gets Iced in Wisconsin

After our brief "bump" in the road (by bump, I mean nail in the tire) and two new tires, we were on the road to South Dakota. First stop, a gas station in Wisconsin where Jess marveled at the fact that they sold beer, wine AND liquor. Unbeknownst to me, she had been scheming a plan. Thanks to our recent trip to see our dear cousin James and his gaggle of gentlemen friends, we learned what "icing" was. Basically, you hide a bottle of Smironoff Ice (as Katy described it, drinking "sweet soda") and wait for someone to find it. Upon them finding it, they have been "iced" and must chug the bottle. Unfortunately, I was the victim. Jess asked me, innocently enough to get her phone out of her purse before she started driving. Instead of her phone, I found a 32 ounce bottle of Smironoff Ice. Good thing I wasn't driving next! (I only chugged about half of it.)




After copious amounts of map and road-sign-reading, we realized that after IL and WI, we would be driving through Minnesota. The cool part was that the whole scenery changed immediately after crossing from WI to Minnesota. The "land of a thousand lakes" is pretty accurate, but the rolling hills really dominated. The coolest part of the ride was when we drove through a giant field of wind turbines. We're talking about 100 on both sides of the road. Apparently they don't do their job when there's no wind because only a couple of them were actually spinning. The most UNCOOL part of the ride was riding behind a truck carrying hundreds and hundreds of chickens on a one lane highway. Jess is severely depressed now that she found out that the chickens are actually not going to a beautiful farm in Minnesota to live out their lives.

Amidst reading another rousing chapter of "Trail of Destiny" where Katy proved her fabulous read aloud skills by proclaiming, in a rather fervent tone, "BARLEY" instead of "BARELY" when the main character asked another if they were awake yet, we arrived in South Dakota. Lots of cows, lots of open space.




After we checked into our ever-so-classy Red Roof Inn in Sioux Falls, we decided to venture to Tea, SD, about 15 minutes away for a recommendation from the road food king, DT. Katy was nervous there would be a dress code at the "Tea Steak House" and we had a good laugh when we got there because of it. Kitschy cowboy pictures, all wood furnishing and a 6'4'' waitress whose hands were bigger than Andre the Giants who we lovingly referred to as Doris. What we got was a feast. Kate- Sirloin, Jess- T-bone steak, and me- the special on a Wednesday night, Prime Rib. All came with salad, recommended hash browns instead of baked potato, and dinner rolls. The steak was unbelievable. We couldn't get over how different- but delicious each cut of meat was. Considering we didn't eat all day, the portions and the price were right. Thanks DT!


So we've been sitting in our hotel watching Top Chef waiting for the flood watch and crazy lightning show to die down before we head outside to get our luggage. Time to get ready for bed- we need to be the first ones at the free continental breakfast tomorrow morning :)