It may be just my imagination, but the terrain seemed to change noticeably from South Dakota to Minnesota, much flatter in Minnesota though still hilly.
There appears to be a noticeable difference in social attitudes between the two states, as well. Though both states allow bill boards, Minnesota seems to have a much stricter set-back requirement--like maybe 1000 feet! The signs sit in the farm fields so far off the road that the ads have to be short and in very large letters to be readable from the highway.
And then there are the wind farms. We saw some on the Canadian prairie and a few in Montana but none in South Dakota. About 35 miles into Minnesota, however, we passed one with several hundred wind turbines. Before turning south into Iowa, we saw many more, although none approached this one in size. Iowa also has wind farms but their enthusiasm for them does not seem to match Minnesota's.
Around mid-afternoon, we entered the hill country of eastern Iowa and were delighted with the sudden abundance of trees. For over 2,000 miles, we have been traveling through country where trees exist only along water courses and in places of human habitation, so to see them growing everywhere, willy-nilly, seemed little short of miraculous.
Day 15
Rapid City, South Dakota to Davenport, Iowa
Daily Mileage: 434.1
Total Mileage: 4,097.3
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