Duluth and Ely, Minnesota

We had some crappy weather in Duluth and Ely, but managed to get in some exploring. Pretty nice campsites in both places. It was great to see so much water after being in landlocked Colorado.

St Paul/Minneapolis

We started today by biking for a few hours along the Mississippi River. It was a beautiful wooded path and the weather was absolutely perfect. After lunch we went on a boat ride on the Mississippi and then wandered around the two cities a bit.

Falls and Malls

We started our day by visiting Sioux Falls, then drove to St Paul, Minnesota. We spent the evening at Mall of America. I didn't get a good picture, but there's a small amusement park inside the mall - along with mini golf and an aquarium. Being Saturday night - it was packed...

Wall Drug & Minuteman Missile Silo

After camping in Badlands, we went to the tourist trap Wall Drug. Not exactly what I expected, but I've always heard about the place, so glad we went. There was also a visitor center for the National Grasslands which was pretty interesting. Then we toured the Minuteman Missile Silo. The picture is one of the underground control rooms that could launch missiles that could travel to Russia in 30 minutes. Our tour guide was a guy who use to work there in 70's. After that a long drive across South Dakota...

Badlands

We did the Badlands Loop today. Very weird place...like Utah in on a prairie. We stopped to have lunch at a remote campground with huge heard of buffalo. We watched them for about an hour - run, roll around in the dirt, and make weird noises.

Black Hills, South Dakota

Since we had been to this area before we didn't go to all the popular destinations (Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse..) instead we found a great bike trail that use to be a railroad. It goes for 109 miles, but we just did 18 miles.

Meadville, PA - Columbus OH

Next stop: visiting my extended family in Pennsylvania. It was great to spend some time with them - again beautiful weather. We also stopped in Columbus, OH to visit one of my friends from the Peace Corps. We had a nice visit, but I didn't take a single picture! We were anxious to get home and I suppose after 5 months of taking pictures I was getting tired of it.