SOUTH DAKOTA TO NEW YORK

August 29th Wednesday through September 1st, Saturday

We left the Badlands National Park early on Wednesday as we were planning on driving a long distance this day as well as the following days so that we would be in New York by Saturday September 1st. Our journey took us on Route 90 through Minnesota, dropping down to Route 80 in Iowa. We stayed on Route 80 through, Illinois to miss the Chicago traffic and on into Indiana below Gary where we picked up Route 90 once again. From there we traveled through Ohio, over just a corner of Pennsylvania next to Lake Erie and into New York.

We averaged around 350 miles per day and welcomed our convenient KOAs along the way with their pools and electrical hook-ups so that we could use our air conditioning. The days continue to be very hot which we don't feel so much until we stop to take a break from driving and exit our air conditioned RV.

The countryside along the highways was beautiful. Rolling hills, miles and miles of corn crops... a lot of it was dried up due to the drought. In fact, one of the farmers we spoke to at a visitor center said that  the corn growers have contracts with the oil companies to supply them with a certain amount of corn for the ethane in the gasoline. The dried corn can still be used for that and they have to honor those contracts, but now the farmers won't have feed for their own animals and will have to buy it this winter.  The bean crop was fine as it needed to be dried out.

We also saw miles and  miles of wind farms on these farm lands. It seems that the landowners get a certain amount for allowing them to use their land and then another amount yearly. You would think that would help the farmers, but they say that the wind turbines do damage to the crops and the surrounding land with the force of the wind.

The traffic was never really heavy until we came to major cities which were few and far between and we made good time most days. It was a tiring drive just the same and we were glad when we arrived in New York for the long Labor Day weekend.