It’s a Dam Big Country — Day 6

I’m tak­ing a day off from dri­ving. I arrived in Pano­ra, IA yes­ter­day after­noon much in need of rest. I’ve done laun­dry, washed my car, sort­ed some pic­tures, played with my moth­er-in-law’s dog, and eat­en way too much. It’s all good.

Here’s were I was and what I did Tues­day the 19^th (Day 6).

I start­ed the day in Pick­stown, SD hav­ing got­ten some very nice shots of the Ft. Ran­dall dam at dusk the night before. 

There was only one dam on the list for the day, Gav­in’s Point Dam near Yank­ton, SD. About 70 miles away. This is anoth­er of the Corps of Engi­neer’s Mis­souri Riv­er dams. Though this one is alto­geth­er too civ­i­lized. They mow the bloody dam. All of it. With John Deere rid­ing mow­ers. There were four of them out when I was there. (Lawn mow­ing is the offi­cial state sport in Iowa. Yank­ton must Just a lit­tle too close to the bor­der to have escaped from the mania.)

There is a pow­er gen­er­a­tion unit in the midst of all that lawn.

Just after I left the Gav­in’s Point dam I got into Iowa. No, it’s not real­ly all this flat. Yes, all the roads are straight and all the inter­sec­tions are per­fect right angles. (almost)

At about 4pm just as I was dri­ving through Guthrie Cen­ter — the next town west — I got a call from my MIL who’d just got­ten home. “come on over” So I did and who would­n’t have a bet­ter day if they saw this lit­tle bug­ger jump­ing up and down in the driveway.

Day 6 Route:

View It’s a Big Dam Coun­try — Day 6 in a larg­er map