Road Trip Day 5 (MN, SD) or Why I HATE MNDOT

[rte66man]

Left Milaca very early on MN 23. Wanter to make it to Wall, SD with a few stops along the way.  More random notes:

MN23 is closed between Foley and the MN95 junction on the east side of St. Cloud. You are detoured south on MN25, then west on MN95.  We didn't lost alot of time here, but I don't understand why the entire road is closed. OK would do the new lanes, then put all the traffic on the new lanes to rebuild the old lanes. Don't know why MN doesn't do this.  At least they had large warning signs up as far east as Milaca.

23 has been widened in quite a few places between St Cloud and Willmar. Made for a nice change since the last time I went this way.

We had planned on taking MN7 west from Clara City to Montevideo, where we would continue west on US212 to Watertown, SD.  Imagine our surprise to find out the bridge across the Minnesota River is closed. No warning signs of any kind until you see some cryptic detour signs on the east side of Montevideo.  The detour sends you all the way back to Granite Falls!!!!  Thanks MnDOT for costing us over an hour.  A warning sign at Clara City would have been most helpful.  Without that, a sign at Montevideo would have helped as well.  Moral of the story, log onto each state's website and download a detour map before driving in that state.

Ended up continuing SW on MN23 to the junction with US14.  Went west on 14 to Brookings, SD. Ate lunch at a McDonalds as my wife and daughters prefer their restrooms (and wanted a pineapple orange smoothie). Had originally taken the US14 bypass, but had to divert back to town as there is zero commercial development on the bypass.

Continued west on 14 to DeSmet, where we toured the Ingalls homestead. Doubt I would have survived in that weather. I like my heating and A/C.

Went south on SD25, then west on SD34, then south on SD37 to Mitchell.  37 is a very nice 4-lane divided road. Not much traffic at 1 p.m. though.Took some pics of the Corn Palace and toured the Indian Archeological dig.  The exhibits say most scientists think the tribe that was settled there about 1000 AD had to move on as they had depleted all the natural resources in the area, especially the trees.

Ate dinner in Mitchell, then lit out for Wall. I90 had a large number of construction zones where traffic was one lane in each direction. Unfortunately, one of those zones prevented us from stopping at the Chamberlain rest area to take pictures of the Missouri River crossing.

Loved driving 75+ in SD. I did notice one large difference between OK and SD. If this were an OK freeway, I would have been passed numerous times by vehicles doing 80-85 mph.  As we only saw one SD trooper on that stretch, I wonder what keeps the rest of the traffic in line.

rte66man

[froggie]

MN23 is closed between Foley and the MN95 junction on the east side of St. Cloud. You are detoured south on MN25, then west on MN95.  We didn't lost alot of time here, but I don't understand why the entire road is closed. OK would do the new lanes, then put all the traffic on the new lanes to rebuild the old lanes. Don't know why MN doesn't do this.

MnDOT normally does this, but they lost time on a lot of projects (including this one) due to the state government shutdown last year, so they shut the road down entirely to make up for that lost time so they could still finish the widening project this year.

We had planned on taking MN7 west from Clara City to Montevideo, where we would continue west on US212 to Watertown, SD.  Imagine our surprise to find out the bridge across the Minnesota River is closed. No warning signs of any kind until you see some cryptic detour signs on the east side of Montevideo.  The detour sends you all the way back to Granite Falls!!!!  Thanks MnDOT for costing us over an hour.  A warning sign at Clara City would have been most helpful.  Without that, a sign at Montevideo would have helped as well.

There are county road crossings of the river both 4 miles south of Montevideo (CSAH 7) and 3 miles northwest of Montevideo (CSAH 15).  Did you consider using those?  Shouldn't have added any more than about 15 minutes.

[rte66man]

We had planned on taking MN7 west from Clara City to Montevideo, where we would continue west on US212 to Watertown, SD.  Imagine our surprise to find out the bridge across the Minnesota River is closed. No warning signs of any kind until you see some cryptic detour signs on the east side of Montevideo.  The detour sends you all the way back to Granite Falls!!!!  Thanks MnDOT for costing us over an hour.  A warning sign at Clara City would have been most helpful.  Without that, a sign at Montevideo would have helped as well.

There are county road crossings of the river both 4 miles south of Montevideo (CSAH 7) and 3 miles northwest of Montevideo (CSAH 15).  Did you consider using those?  Shouldn't have added any more than about 15 minutes.

GPS was on the fritz and the lovely AAA map didn't have that level of detail.  The posted detour was south ON CSAH15 for 2 miles, west on a spur across the tracks to 212, south to CSAH5, west to 59, then back north to 212.  I figured I was better off just going to Granite Falls by that time. The lack of directional indicators was confusing to me. Was the detour for South or North or both?  I have some pics of the detour signage I will have to dig out.

rte66man

[froggie]

It's probably just as well.  I looked at MnDOT's website and there are 2 different construction zones on 212 between Montevideo and US 75 totalling 12 miles where they're rebuilding the road from the ground up.  You'd have hit a second detour in Dawson that would've taken you almost to the state line, in part because most of the roads out there are gravel.

I take it you didn't have a MnDOT map or the DeLorme atlas for Minnesota.  Both would've helped you out here.  I typically bring the DeLorme for those areas where I don't have cell coverage or the USGS topos downloaded.

[rte66man]

I take it you didn't have a MnDOT map or the DeLorme atlas for Minnesota.  Both would've helped you out here.  I typically bring the DeLorme for those areas where I don't have cell coverage or the USGS topos downloaded.

Good advice. New to-do list for next trip:
(1) - get Delorme of states I'll be passing thru.
(2) - visit state DOT site for detour information.

rte66man