Goal for day: drive across most of South Dakota. We decided on two stops along the way to keep this interesting - 1880 town, and the Corn Palace.
This hadn't been on our radar for the day. We'd only learned about 1880 town the day before, while Googling/Chatting/looking for options along the drive. Zadie had wanted to pan for gemstones somewhere along the trip, and we'd missed the shootout in the street show in Deadwood (which I remembered from a childhood trip but missed this time through as we traveled through during their day off), so this was a good option for both. 1880 town has a bunch of small buildings along a Main Street, everything decorated as if it was - yup - 1880. They also had a couple small museums of western movie memorabilia ("Dancing With Wolves," filmed in SC, featured promenently) and other antiques. Zadie loved finding all the gems in her sack of dirt. The Enloe Theater department would've improved the shootout show by a large margin, but it was still something fun and different.
For me and Ruth, the highlight was their costume rentals. While Zadie and Bill had some sarsaparilla and played cards in the saloon, we got dolled up. Behind the bar was a huge room filled with costumes and accessories for various character types. After trying on some "Little House on the Prairie"-style casual outfits, I decided on a "Going Into Town" dress. Ruth had fun with the "Showgirl" dresses. Once we picked dresses, they helped us find shoes and accessories to match, then we took off to finish our tour of the town in all our finery. Surprisingly fun!
After a picnic lunch, we returned to the car and realized that a goat was lying right behind one of the tires, blocking our way out. Eventually Ruth shooed it away, only to have a second goat head over. We eventually got a clear path out.
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More driving. Our second stop was the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. For the 250th anniversary, it was decorated in a full 'Merica theme. I didn't remember the inside being so boring (college arena, with the arena floor temporarily set up as a gift shop), but this was an interesting and quirky stop nonetheless. We bought a pen shaped like an ear of corn, which died less than 3 months later. RIP, corn pen.
On to Sioux Falls. We stopped at a delicious healthy bowl and smoothie place for dinner to pack in all the fruits and veggies that we couldn't find in Wall, then checked into yet another Hyatt, this one overlooking a man-made lake.