Traveling Huntleys

Inspiring travel stories, tips, and guides from a couple exploring the world one destination at a time.

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Mitchell, South Dakota: The World’s Only Corn Palace, Oscar Howe and a Thousand Years of Corn

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Last Updated: September 11, 2026

Mitchell sits on Interstate 90 in the southeastern quarter of South Dakota, about an hour and a half northwest of Yankton, and it is known for exactly one thing: the World’s Only Corn Palace. That claim sounds like small-town bluster. It is literally true, and the reason why turns out to be the most interesting thing about the building.

American white pelicans on the open water of Lake Mitchell, Mitchell, South Dakota

This was the last stop of a long month — Kentucky, Missouri, Iowa and now the eastern edge of the Great Plains — and the weather had not finished with us. Sustained winds over 20 mph with gusts past 50, rain, and nighttime temperatures near freezing. We were still inside the country that produces spring tornadoes and we kept the truck pointed out, ready to move if we had to. That habit is the subject of its own post, Crossing Tornado Country in an RV, and this was the third campground in a row where it earned its keep.

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Blue Springs, Missouri to Yankton, South Dakota: Wind, the Nelson-Atkins and the Council at Calumet Bluff

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Last Updated: September 11, 2026

This was a week governed almost entirely by the weather. We left Branson and ran north up the Missouri River valley in three hops — an hour to Springfield for an Airstream repair, then Blue Springs outside Kansas City, then Onawa in western Iowa, then Yankton, South Dakota, on the river below Gavins Point Dam. Rain cut Kansas City short. Iowa gave us three days of steady thirty-mile-an-hour wind with gusts to sixty. And the whole route was shaped by wanting to stay out of the way of spring storms on the Plains.

Glassy still water on Lake Yankton below Gavins Point Dam, Yankton, South Dakota

That is Lake Yankton at the end of it, flat as a sheet of glass, three days after we had been building windbreaks out of the truck in Iowa. If you want the argument for why we planned our travel the way we did for nine years, this week is the whole thing in miniature — and it is written out properly in Crossing Tornado Country in an RV.

It is also where the spring finally caught us. We had been traveling inside the bloom since Florida, moving north at roughly the pace the season moves. By the time we reached the Missouri there were Canada geese with goslings on the bank and wild turkeys displaying in the campground, which is the point at which you stop arriving early and start arriving on time.

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Cumberland Falls, Bowling Green & Hardin, Kentucky: A Corvette in a Sinkhole, Elk on the Prairie and the Mayfield Scar

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Last Updated: September 3, 2026

Hardin was our last westward stop in Kentucky on our way to spring in the Rocky Mountains. From the Red River Gorge to Corbin, it was a couple hour drive in the rain. It was also our last chance to see elk again until the Rockies. Three stops across the width of the state — Cumberland Falls in the east, Bowling Green in the middle, Hardin out on Kentucky Lake — and between them a sinkhole that ate eight Corvettes, a fenced prairie with elk in it, and the scar of one of the worst tornadoes in American history.

Two bull elk grazing on the Elk and Bison Prairie at Land Between the Lakes near Hardin, Kentucky
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Lexington, Kentucky Bourbon Trail: James E. Pepper, the Ark Encounter and the ABCs of Bourbon

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Last Updated: August 6, 2026

Lexington, Kentucky is known as the “Horse Capital of the World”. It’s also the second largest city in the bluegrass state and known for Keeneland, one of the most picturesque race parks in the country. Unfortunately the track wasn’t open yet — Keeneland only races two short meets a year, fifteen days in April and seventeen in October, and we were a few days early. We finished our bourbon trail in Lexington.

Bottles of James E. Pepper 1776 Rye Whiskey, Lexington, KY
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Land Between the Lakes, Kentucky: Bison, 270 Cemeteries and the Town That Was Erased

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Last Updated: August 3, 2026

Land Between the Lakes is a National Recreation Area in western Kentucky and Tennessee. The area is formed by Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley, which run parallel to each other for more than 50 miles. Lake Barkley, 58,000 acres, was formed by Barkley Dam impounding the Cumberland River, completed in 1966 by the Army Corps of Engineers. Kentucky Lake, 160,000 acres, was formed by Kentucky Dam impounding the Tennessee River in 1944, a TVA project and still the largest artificial lake by surface area in the eastern United States. At Grand Rivers the two come within about a mile of each other and are joined by a canal, which means a boat can pass from one river system to the other. The 170,000 acres left standing between them make up the largest inland peninsula in the country. It is very popular for water sports, hunting, fishing, mountain biking and hiking. From Cave City, Kentucky it was about a two-and-a-half hour drive.

Sunset over Lake Barkley, Kentucky
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Hanna Park, Jacksonville, Florida: Oceanfront Camping, Boneyard Beach & the Historian Behind the Name

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Last Updated: August 2, 2026

Hanna Park is about 450 acres of mature coastal hammock at Mayport, in the Jacksonville Beaches area of northeast Florida. Its full name is Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park, and the name is worth pausing on rather than skimming past — more on her in a moment. Winthrop Bancroft donated the first five oceanfront acres to the City of Jacksonville in 1967 on the condition that the park carry her name; the city bought up adjoining land and the park opened in 1972.

Wide Atlantic beach and surf at Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park, Jacksonville, Florida
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