After the culture of Chicago it was now the kids turn with aquatic  heaven at Noah’s Ark in Wisconsin, billed as America’s Largest Waterpark.   Despite the heavy rain (“hey, we’re wet already”) and cold wind at times, everyone had a fun time.

We crossed the mighty Mississippi, a grand sight and a mental milestone in our journey west.

These legs were about getting some distance in – next stop was Sioux Falls, South Dakota with its small but nice zoo (for Ana) and the falls that give the city its name.

All the guidebooks largely wrote off this portion of the drive – but this was our first introduction to the prairie and we loved it.  So vast and picturesque in many parts with an endless sky and ribbons of motorway stretching to the horizon.  We expected dry and bare, however this was fertile country although it reminded us of the 1930s Dust Bowl when this part of the world had up to 75% of its fertile topsoil blown away due to a disasterous miscalculation of the weather patterns, mass migration and newly introduced mechanisation.  It was America’s worst environmental disaster – and potentially new challenges ahead with the rapid depletion of the Ogallala aquifer that changed the course of history for these dry parts of the country, and underpins the existence of many out here.

All photos here: next stop, Badlands National Park.