Day 1: Are we there yet???

Wow, what a long day!!! For me anyway, I woke up at 4:30 Thursday morning. I guess I was getting anxious about starting our trip.
We left the house around 11am, somewhat later than we wanted to - but hey! we're on vacation! Started out driving in the rain which cleared up by the time we got to Rockford. Driving though Wisconsin was uneventful, which is a good thing. We stopped at Cracker Barrel outside of Madison for lunch -mmmm...Chicken & Dumplings! The only issue with the restaurant was the difficulty getting to it. It had a deceptive sign alongside the highway. You ended up having to drive into a large shopping area to get to it. Getting back on the highway was even more fun - we found out (the hard way) - there was no entrance back onto 90!!! We had to drive through parts of town to get back. Had we known that, we would have just gone another 20-25 miles down the road to the next one.
Onward to Minnesota. We stopped at the visitor center - one of Jan's "musts" for every state we drive into. The visitor center was quiet nice - great views of the Mighty Mississippi and the locks. There was a massive grouping of barges waiting to go through the locks. I've got a couple of pictures - will post those up tonight. Once again, most of the drive was uneventful. But we did almost end up with a free dinner outside of Albert Lea, MN. We're driving along, getting ready to pass an 18-wheeler. All of a sudden strutting off the left shoulder - a momma turkey and 2 little ones!!! We had to swerve a little bit to avoid hitting them. Fortunately, she managed to get herself and her babies back onto the median. I hope they eventually got across safely. We stopped for gas and dinner at the quaintly named "The Embers" restaurant in Jackson, MN - self-proclaimed "home of the Emburger". (Reminded me of Steve Martin in "The Pink Panther") Well, we won't be going back there anytime soon. The food - Jan had the Royal Emburger and I had a Mushroom Swiss Emburger - was mediocre at best. Service was slow, although there were only 3 tables of diners. Oh and ladies washroom - yuck!
We couldn't get back on the road quickly enough. We finally pulled in to our overnight stay in Sioux Falls around 11pm (which is one reason I am posting this morning, instead of last night!)
More to come later on...