Day 11 -- Mitchell, SD

We are in Mitchell, South Dakota -- took us maybe 5-6 hours of driving from Minneapolis. Mostly, we had planned this as just a rest stop and quick jumping off spot for tomorrow's foray into Badlands National Park, but we found that Mitchell is not completely devoid of interest.

To begin with, it is home to the Mitchell Corn Palace. Frankly, it ain't much to be interested in, but it is kind of cool the way they use corn and other such items to construct the mosaic pictures that adorn the building.

Here's one of the pictures with this year's rodeo theme.

Of more interest to us was this doll museum, with over 5000 dolls. Laura, of course, loves old dolls. But I was surprised a month or two ago, when we went to the Doll House Museum in Delaware, to find how much I liked seeing them too.

Here, Laura examines some of the collection. It was pretty impressive, really, and huge.

Our road trip here was interesting -- we drove through a considerable lightning storm, with magnificent, if scary, large bolts of lightning. And, believe it or not, "A" and I had our first meals ever at a Subway. Not bad.

Oh yeah, in case you ever wanted to know, the world's best coffeehouse is in Mitchell, South Dakota, as this picture clearly states.

Mind you, we never went there, but it's stated clearly on their sign.