On day 94 of “The Ultimate USA Road Trip” we drive from Sioux Falls in South Dakota to O'Neill in Nebraska. We drive through a typical agricultural area with extensive meadows in a hilly area with beautiful views. Along the route you pass small villages and farms.
Agriculture in South Dakota is an important industry and therefore large parts are characterized by vast prairies, ranch landscapes, fertile farmland and glacial lakes. The natural vegetation of Nebraska, also known as the “Cornhusker State”, consists mainly of prairie, which is ideal for agriculture and ranching. “Cornhusking” is the harvesting of corn by hand.

During the ride there are some nice sights worth visiting such as the “National Music Museum: America's Shrine to Music & Center for Study of the History of Musical Instruments (NMM)” in Vermillion, South Dakota. This musical instrument museum was founded in 1973 on the campus of the University of South Dakota. The NMM is recognized by the National Music Council as “A Landmark of American Music.”

NMM's renowned collections, which include American, European, and non-Western instruments from a wide range of cultures and historical periods, are among the most inclusive in the world. They contain many of the earliest, best preserved, and most historically Western important instruments. The quality of the NMM has earned it international recognition.

The museum reopened in August 2023 after a multi-year renovation. In addition to being a modern addition to the historic Carnegie Library building, the new galleries offer more than 16,000 square feet of displays that show how musical instruments, across time and space, are a part of our lives.

In the town of Vermillion you can also visit the Austin-Whittemore House Museum, this is a historic building in Vermillion, originally a private home built in 1884, but now it is a historic house museum and the headquarters of the Clay County Historical Society. It is one of the last remaining examples of 19th century architecture in the Vermillion area and has been preserved largely as it was at the time of its construction. It reflects a fusion of late Victorian architecture, particularly Italianate, with stylistic adaptations of American architectural styles. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

We cross the Missouri River, which is also the border between South Dakota and Nebraska and drive on NE-12 and US-20 between green meadows and corn fields south towards Sioux City, a real pioneer city, which can be seen in the historical museums and monuments. Enthusiasts can split the route and plan a day in Sioux City.

Just before Sioux City, along US-20, is the special open-air museum “Sentinels of the Prairie”, this is one of the largest private collections of antique windmills in the US! Dozens of windmills line the highway, with beautiful plaques telling about the history of these unique structures. Many of these date from the 19th century and most were used to pump water on farms. There are also a few other artifacts in the collection, including a train carriage and a wooden cart. The entire collection can be viewed outside and is free to visit. There is also a railway line in the area, so keep an eye out.

After a lunch and fuel stop in Norfolk we drive to the highlight of this trip The Ashfall Fossil Beds of Antelope County in northeastern Nebraska, these are rare fossil beds of the “Lagerstätten” (German for storage place) type. “Lagerstätten are a sedimentary rock that contains exceptionally well-preserved fossils, often with a great diversity of species. In some cases even tissue has been secured. The Ashfall Fossil Beds were formed by ash from an eruption of Bruneau-Jarbidge supervolcano in Yellowstone (in present-day Idaho), nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 km) west of the Ashfall site, 10 to 12 million years ago. The ash depth was a maximum of 30 cm, which means that the fossils are well preserved.

The site is protected as Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park, a 150-acre park with a visitor center with interpretive displays, an active fossil preparation laboratory, and a protected ongoing excavation site, the Hubbard Rhino Barn, with fossil Teleoceras (native hippo-like ancestral rhino), camels, birds and ancestral horses. The Ashfall Fossil Beds are stratigraphically part of the Ogallala Group of Serravallian age.

After visiting the Ashfall Fossil Beds we drive to nearby O'Neill where we spend the night.