Belvidere and Murdo, South Dakota

Ron and I drove the 5th wheel from Yankton to Belvidere today so we could set up our home base while we visit the sites on the west side of South Dakota.  The drive along I-90 is beautiful; but, the speed limit freaks me out. Driving along in a truck pulling a massive 5th wheel is okay between 60 - 68 mph. But, the speed limit here is 80 mph! We get passed like we are two old people driving down the road in an RV... wait a minute... we are! At least we can actually see the scenery as we drive by.
Among the vast fields of sun flowers, corn, soy beans, and cattle, we saw another roadside oddity... a crazy metal sculpture of a skeletal man and dinosaur! I had to look it up so I could actually write something about it. There is a roadside attraction at our exit called 1880's Town. The town is filled with restored buildings filled with movie memorabilia and artifacts from the 1880's. Evidently, a member of the family that owns the 1880's town build the skeletal man, holding an ax, walking a dinosaur on a leash, so it would look like they are walking down the hill toward the settlement. We are planning on going to the attraction later this week some time. Maybe I can find some post cards of it to mail to the grandkids.

We expected to see fields of sunflowers in Kansas.
It wasn't until we got to central South Dakota that
we started seeing fields of them. HUGE fields!!

The vastness of the landscape makes you feel
so small and insignificant.

The crazy skeletal man walking his dino.  Weird!

Once we got set up, we drove to a town called Murdo. There is a huge car museum right along the side of the interstate.  It has over 250 cars, a large tractor/farm equipment collection, a building filled with bikes and motorcycles, several old fire trucks, an old school building and church, and an assortment of antiques. There is also a nice little gift shop and a small cafe. We didn't eat there; but, we did get some delicious ice cream cones. Not quite as tasty as Bluebell; but, pretty good. Ron really loved the car museum and was able to walk through most of it.  We skipped the farm equipment and antiques because we really weren't interested in those.  There were some really cool cars that people had donated to the museum. We also found out that the guys from American Pickers have been there a few times and bought things from the owner. None of the buildings are air conditioned; but, it was only about 80 degrees while we were there and they had huge fans circulating the air. 

This car is made of mahogany! It has 2 engines because it is so heavy!! 

This building had a lot of cars that either belonged
to famous people; or were used in movies to
depict cars used by James Dean, Elvis Presley, and
a few other people I didn't recognize.

That's actually Ron driving the General Lee.

A lot of the cars were donated by local people; but, there were quite a few that
the owner bought from people just passing through to see the museum.
He bought an East German Traubant that way!

Lots and lots of really old cars! I think the oldest
one I saw was from 1909.

There was hardly anyone there when we were so
none of the buildings had people in them. It was almost
like having a private tour.

I only saw 2 VWs... this Thing

and a really nice blue bug.

One of several old fire trucks with lots of memorabilia
on the walls behind them.

I read about these pump carts; but can't remember what I read!

This one kinda reminds me of the one that Temple has.
It just isn't in nearly as good shape!

Tomorrow we are planning on going to church at a small branch somewhere in the area. It is over 40 miles away; but, it's the closest one! After that, we are going to the Minute Man Missile Silo Historical Site. The lady at the tourist info site where we picked up a bunch of fliers said that you can go down into the silo where the missiles were stored; but, you need reservations. We were told that we can check at the desk when we get there to see if there are any cancelations and might get lucky enough to go down. We are both looking forward to this stop; probably because we grew up in a generation of kids that practiced atomic bomb drills by huddling under our desks at school! It is crazy how things have changed; but, stayed the same.