Back when we naively thought our home renovations were actually going to begin on September 1 (ha ha ha ha ha, how dumb were we even though two other planned start dates had come and gone), we planned an epic road trip. We figured that, since we had to be out of the house anyway, we might as well get back on the road. When it became clear that the renovations weren’t going to start on time, we decided to embark on a portion of the planned road trip anyway. It has been a miserable year full of more downs than ups, and we just needed to travel again.

Day one saw us driving from Minneapolis to Sioux Falls. The first stop was at Jim’s Apple Farm in Jordan, Minnesota. I know what you are thinking — you are thinking why in the heck did they stop at an apple farm? Well, Jim’s isn’t just an apple farm. Nope, it is also Minnesota’s largest candy store. It had so many different types of candy (even, believe it or not, candy cigarettes), plus pies and fudge and root beer and even cucumber flavored potato chips (gross!).

Jim’s Apple Farm also had a Tardis (although, sadly, this particular Tardis was not bigger on the inside). You know what it didn’t have? Anyone (other than us) wearing masks. And, we got a few evil looks for wearing our masks. Guess we should have known better when we saw the massive display of candy cigarettes. You know what else it had? An insane tax rate — they charged us something like 34% in taxes. Sure wish I had looked at the receipt while we were still in the store so I could have asked when the heck was going on ….

Our next stop was Minneopa State Park. You know what they have there? Bison. A herd of 30-40 bison. And, I’m pretty sure we saw all of them. And, we were so close to them — close enough that (from the relative safety of our car) we could hear them breathe and grunt and chew grass and close enough that we could see they were absolutely covered in flies. So cool!

Next on our list was the Jolly Green Giant, a 55 foot statue right off of Interstate 90. Unfortunately, the sun was directly behind the giant when we visited, so it was hard to get decent photos of anything other than the Green Giant’s backside. But, the Green Giant welcome center had clean bathrooms. And, clean bathrooms on a road trip are worth their weight in gold.

From there, it was a boring couple of hours to Sioux Falls. We didn’t have time to do much sightseeing in Sioux Falls, but we did make it to Falls Park to see the waterfalls. And, we were able to check out some of the (not very good) sculpture downtown. If anyone tells you that the Sioux Falls sculpture walk is a “must do,” don’t believe them….

Day 1 wasn’t our best travel day ever, but, boy, did it feel good to be back on the road!