Day 6 - September 19

Left the hotel this morning and stopped at Targets to get a poncho. Rain is forecast later this week and we don’t want to miss anything. We drove to St. Paul, Minnesota (the state capitol.) We found the capitol (thank goodness for a GPS). The grounds are beautiful, lush grass and beautiful flowers. They have several monuments in an area of honor. The monuments start with the war of 1812 and go through Desert Storm. They have a really impressive monument to Korea (pictured with the soldier sculpture) and one to the honor of police officers. The capitol building is really grand from the outside but the inside is not as impressive as Alabama’s capital. James scared me here – we were coming down the marble steps into the rotunda and he fell – he landed on the floor (two steps down) and said he was not hurt – although later admitted he was getting sore. You can see St. John’s Cathedral from the capitol steps and we went there next. We went inside and they were having an ordination service, ordaining 7 men as priests, so we didn’t tour the inside. Leaving there we rode down Summit Avenue which is the longest row of Victorian houses in the U. S. Many are very beautiful. From there we headed south to Interstate 90 which we took west toward South Dakota. We came across another windmill farm and got off the road and made some great pictures. Look closely at the one that has several windmills and you will see the others in the background. On the picture of the large windmill, that is James standing on the step (that little dot.) I wanted to do that so you could realize how large these windmills are. We were close enough today to hear the “whoosh” sound they make as the wind turns them. AMAZING! After driving 380 miles we stopped for the night in Mitchell, SD.