Mitchell

Sometimes an overnight stop turns into three. And, such is the case for us in Mitchell, South Dakota. After a long drive here Monday we were definitely ready to stop and rest. We liked R&R Campground so much we decided to stick around for a couple more days.

Had we only stayed one night we would have missed this! The Mitchell Corn Palace is the town's number one tourist attraction. We'd heard about it, of course, but had never laid eyes on American's only building with a corn facade. About 275,000 corn cobs and more than 3,000 bushels of rye, milo, oat heads and sour dock adorn the palace, which has stood here on Main Street since 1892.

Every year the exterior is replaced with new decor reflecting a theme. This year's theme is "Through the Ages", and the corn cob murals reflect a variety of modes of transportation. We looked, but we didn't see an RV on the place!

The redecoration process starts in June. The first process is to replace the dock and rye, which was happening today. The murals will be replaced during the Corn Palace Festival in August.

At a gift shop across the street visitors can touch "actual Corn Palace corn". Yep. It looks and feels like real corn to us!

Admission to the world's only corn palace is absolutely free. So, of course, we stepped inside.

The Corn Palace serves a community venue for sporting events, concerts and such. Today, it was a cool place to beat the heat! Inside there are more murals. We found this corn cob interpretation of our last destination. Interesting.

There were more gift items available for sale inside. And, of course, many of them have something to do with corn. These corn husk dolls were cute.

These corn cob Christmas ornaments had me chuckling. There was a whole tree full!

And, what would a corn palace be without corn cob pipes?

There were all kinds of corn decoratives, like these candle holders. And, yes, that's right. Those are corn cob candles!

Doesn't every bird want a house shaped like an ear of corn?

I'm not exactly sure what this is about. But, by now I was really laughing. This place is a hoot!

And, of course, there were plenty of corn comestibles, like carmel corn...

...corn cob jelly (Who knew?)...

...corn salsa (but, I swear I couldn't find any corn chips!)...

and this microwave popcorn that pops on the cob.

There's corn chowder, too. But, this stuff was made in ILLINOIS!

And, there were lots of little gadgets to make fixing and eating corn a bit easier. Yes, it was all pretty corny!

Yep, Mitchell is very proud of corn. The high school athletic teams are the Kernels. (tee hee!) As we were getting ready to go we were visited by the town mascot, (Get ready for it!) Cornelius!

If you find yourself cruising along I-90 and you come upon Mitchell, take a break and check out the corn palace. There's plenty of parking, even for RVs. And, go inside and look around. It's definitely good for a laugh.

And, who knows, you might just decide to stick around for a couple of days! After three fun nights in Mitchell, we're taking our moose home tomorrow...to the booming metropolis of Forest City, Iowa.

Stay tuned!

Hill City

We're back on the road this morning. Our visit to Hill City was fun, but far too short. Crooked Creek Resort provided us a lovely creekside spot to kick back, relax and enjoy some time with family.

After yesterday morning's wet tour of Mount Rushmore, we waited for things to dry out and let our nieces pick the afternoon's activity. They chose Bear Country USA, a drive-through wildlife park between Hill City and Rapid City. This isn't the kind of place we'd choose to visit on our own, but we were happy to be along for the ride. When we made the first turn and saw this herd of elk lounging in the tall grass, we all thought this place was pretty cool!

The reindeer were very comfortable around our minivan and came very close. This guy had one impressive rack!

This Arctic fox was enjoying a peaceful afternoon nap.

The bear habitat was large with many big, burly residents. This guy was one of the first we saw.

We got out of the car to see the small animals and babies. This lynx stretches just like our kitties!

The bear cubs were fun to watch, and very busy! They just wouldn't stay still for a picture, but we were able to catch these two cuties in action.

That is one cool looking coyote!

We were pleasantly surprised how much we enjoyed our tour. And, by the looks on the faces of the three that picked the place, we think they had a good time, too.

Mount Rushmore

Our first morning in Hill City was beautiful, so we decided to scout out the Mount Rushmore National Memorial. These 60-foot tall faces in granite are awe inspiring. It's really something to take in not just the work of these four American Presidents over the first 150 years of our country's history, but also the sheer scope of this magnificent work of art and craftsmanship. Truly awesome.

Paul and I took the Presidential Trail for some up close and personal looks at George and the boys.

Taking in the view of Jefferson, several people commented that we were looking up his nose. Well, we sure were!

One of the most fascinating features of Theodore Roosevelt's sculpture is his eyeglasses. Such fine detail in stone. And, that mustache looks very realistic!

The face of Abe Lincoln is serious and soulful. Look at those eyes. How did they do that?

An interesting spot on the trail is the Sculptor's Studio. Inside stands a model depicting the original design of the monument. As the ranger (who looks quite tiny here) explained, the carving ended prematurely when federal funding was cutoff in 1941.

The model in the foreground and the finished work in the background.

As we headed back toward Hill City we stopped at the Profile View turnout and caught this last glimpse of Washington.

Yesterday we made a return trip to the memorial with Paul's brother and his family. We enjoyed looking at all of the state and US territory flags on the Avenue of Flags.

We lined everybody up and shot 'em!

Here you see four Presidents and two Marys!

While we were in the Visitors Center the clouds opened up and the rain poured. The four gray faces looked rather tearful. A couple of them looked like they could use a Kleenex!

No matter what the weather, Mount Rushmore is one of those can't miss places to visit. As the South Dakotans say, these are truly Great Faces.