Day 9 -- Watertown, South Dakota to Sauk Center, Minnesota -- 202 Miles

Well, we might have traveled 202 miles today but 11 of those miles were in the wrong direction, which meant another 11 were needed to get back to where we started. But hey, everyone takes the wrong turn once in awhile. Right?

It happened because our intended avenue of travel, that of the two-lane highway known as Route 212, was closed from Watertown, South Dakota, clear to the Minnesota State line due to highway maintenance. I guess they didn't get the memo that we were coming. At any rate, in an effort to navigate the detour I turned right when I should have turned left.

So, once we'd gotten back to the starting point, we headed north on Route 29 with the intention of grabbing the next available road of respectable size heading east. That turned out to be Route 12. That particular route was nice since it ultimately ends up in Minneapolis, our intended destination for this portion of the trip.

There was only one problem with Route 12 -- It didn't offer much in the way of camping opportunities. When we reached the town of Benson, we asked a local where the nearest camp was located and he shrugged and said he didn't know of any. That should have been a clue. But using all our sources of information we decided to go north as there seemed to be a camp on Route 29 north of Benson that advertised full hookups. There was only one problem when we got there: they didn't really have full hookups, nor much in the way vacant spaces at all.

Okay, so we went back to the camp book and the GPS and the internet to try and find another camp, which is how we ended up in Sauk Center, Minnesota, which turned out to be 61 Miles north of our starting point in Benson.

Anyway, here we are near the beautiful town of Sauk Center, Minnesota with our rig all set up about 150 feet from a beautiful lake. The breeze is quite cool this afternoon, but it feels good after the heat of the day. We were quite fortunate in getting this particular spot in Sauk Center as it was the last camp site they had with full hookups. While all the laundry AND the RV rig itself got washed this morning before we left Watertown, neither Concetta nor I had enjoyed the privilege at last night's camp since it had no sewer connections. Were it not for our desire to get baths ourselves, we might have forgone the sewer hookup as the park here had lots of water/electric campsites. So we were hugely pleased to secure this site even though I had to work on leveling the rig more than usual due to the uneven terrain.

The other thing that suffered today was the photography. We got such a late start that we didn't do any lallygagging at all. We stopped for lunch in the lovely town of Milbank on Route 12 but didn't take a walk. We did take a walk in the town of Benson, but the only point of interest was a very cool diner that I shot that was not the pretend type of diner, but an honest to God railroad car from a century ago still used as a restaurant.

I wondered when I first spotted this gem on Benson, South Dakota's main street if it was just a facade that some rail enthusiast had "tacked on" to the front of his restaurant. But once I walked up on the porch and peered through the window I could easily see that the rail car existed all the way back to the rear of the restaurant. The car even still had its clerestory windows above the tables, though the owners had knocked out the eastern side of the car body to expand into the adjoining structure. Still pretty cool as you just don't see real railroad-car diners these days.

You may not know that the first "diner" as such goes back to the early 1870s when a budding entrepreneur hitched up old Dobbin to a light delivery wagon and sold food out of the conveyance along a regular route. By the 1920s prefabricated diners began to appear that were meant to look like rail cars. People had been eating in rail cars since before the turn of the 20th century. As cross-country train travel became more commonplace, passengers began to expect high-quality food to be served on board. The level of meal service on trains in the 1920s and 1930s rivaled that of high-end restaurants and clubs.

So, it was natural that entrepreneurs simply used surplus railroad diners as their restaurants in the beginning. They were cheap and already set up as restaurants. From there it was an easy jump from using real dining cars to companies beginning to build diners that "looked like" railroad dining cars, but had no wheels to get in the way. These originally came from the manufacturer as full units, but eventually companies constructed the diners in modular pieces which were easier to move and easier to set up. Many of these pseudo railroad diners still exist today in cities all over America. We have one quite near where we live in the town of Truckee, California.

There are things you always look for when you're a fan of transportation subjects from a long-gone era, and diners is one of them. Lots of the surviving examples are lovingly refurbished and maintained. Still, you just don't see many of them. So if you're out there driving the two-lanes, be sure and keep an eye out for the survivors and snap a few photos. Let us know where you find them and maybe we can go take a look as well.

As you know, our purpose for beginning our trip east with a visit to Minneapolis is to retrieve a couple of seat frames and springs I purchased for our 1929 Ford. The frame and drive train for this particular car is one that my baby brother began way, way back in the mid 1960s. Later, when he decided to get married and move to upstate New York, I purchased his lovingly restored Model A running gear so the car would stay in the family. This frame has been in our garage most of the past 40 years. However the original body for this car was lost long ago.

Recently I discovered that just a dozen miles from where we live a fellow Nevadan had a 1929 Model A Tudor body for sale that I decided would be a great fit for my brother's one-time project. So now, the body rests mere inches from the frame it will eventually adorn, but there are a number of parts still to be found to make the project come together. Hence the seat deal.

Thus far, I have had five wheels powder-coated and new tires installed thanks to my buddy Buzz Middleton. Buzz has the mechanical genius that my brother once had and is always my first choice for advice on this project. Buzz is also working on my rear fenders which I suspect will be done sometime this summer. So if you're out there reading this and YOU have parts and pieces for a 1929 Model A Tudor, or indeed any model, please feel free to let me know.

And there you have it. Tomorrow we're going to see Sinclair Lewis' home just north of here followed by whatever educational and historically fascinating things we can find to do before driving the last hundred miles to Minneapolis. Hopefully Saturday we'll be able to meet with the gentleman who has my seats, and then we're off to upstate Michigan. So in parting I will say, the Happy wanderers wish you happy travels and exciting destinations as YOU venture out on the two-lanes of this wonderful country.