Westward ho! (post wedding)

Monday (7/30) after dropping the children off at the MSP airport we drove an epic ten and a half hours past acres and acres of farms, corn and hay fields, giant windmills, silos and ethanol plants to the Bad Lands.  [Quick tally of all the states through which we've traveled:  MA, CT, NY, PA, OH, IN, IL, WI, MN, SD = 10 so far!].    Beastly hot and barren.   Nils actually wavered a bit when the woman at the entrance kiosk asked whether we wanted an electrical hook-up at our campsite (so that we could use the a/c).  REALLY, NILS????  He had to think more than a nano-second about whether we might possibly want some air-conditioning on a 104+ degree day!?!?!?....clearly he was addled from the extreme heat and not thinking straight.  Fortunately, once the sun went down the wind cooled considerably and we sat outside watching the moon rise and star after star come out in a clear, dark sky.  We opened all the windows and the coolest, most refreshing swind blew through.  And so we spent our first night in the Bad Lands.