Hi everyone! Welcome to day 31. Today was another unremarkable riding day through miles of cornfields and farmlands. We had only 70 miles to bike today, which after the past 3 days of biking over 90 miles a day felt like a true blessing and almost a rest day.

Two of the groups decided to make a detour first thing in the morning to see the waterfalls in Sioux Falls and got some really nice pictures out of it. The rest of us made no time for such nonsense and headed straight to our goal.

While the actual biking was not particularly interesting today, the destination absolutely was. We were incredibly lucky that our stayover in Mitchell SD is the world’s only Corn Palace! It might just be the most unique place I have ever seen in my life. It is decorated on the outside with murals made out of real corn and has about a hundred corn-themed items for sale in the gift store. As Illinois kids, we were excited beyond belief to stay in a place like this.

After getting to our fabulous stayover and marveling at its beauty for a long while, we got treated to a dinner donation from a local bike shop called Palace City Pedalers. I cannot of course confirm nor deny whether this was the best food donation we have received so far but I can certainly say that the words “this is the best day of my life” were said out loud at least once. The donation included us getting anything we wanted at Subway and us crying with joy hearing that we could do that.

Huge thank you to Palace City Pedalers for the donation as well as the Corn Palace for letting us sleep here!

-Valerie