2017 08 24 Mitchell, South Dakota Home of the World's Only Corn Palace

Tuesday, Aug 22, 2017 - We decided to take a day trip and drive over to Mitchell, South Dakota. Only about an hour away and at 80 mph, it was easy to take care of an item on our bucket list.  "The World's Only Corn Palace"

2016-2017 theme is "Rock of Ages" and this is festival week. 

The side "torches", arches, banner and side panels are all made with corn and grasses. 

Inside the palace, around the wall, was the history of the Corn Palace began in 1892.
Bob liked this bit of history.

On a wall upstairs are sketches used for the outside artwork
designed by Oscar Howe from 1948 to 1971.

This is the one in the auditorium (below)
with a close up showing the corn.

The Palace hosts live music concerts and sports events.

The left panel is the rendered sketch above.

Panoramic view of auditorium

Close up of artwork showing
the ears of corn used. Colors are indicated on the drawing.

Second floor balcony at front of Corn Palace.

View of Main Street from the Corn Palace Balcony. Things are a little slow during the day. Entertainment is only scheduled for the evening.

Willie Nelson

??? Any guesses on this character?

Elvis

???

??? We guessed Elton John based on the coat tails but Billy Joel also is an option.

??? Seriously no clue. How many guitar players wear cowboy hats?

Will the real John Travolta
please sit down.

??? Joni Mitchell? But not sure if she wore round glasses but the flowers and the peace sign should be hints.

Diagram of possible panel with corn colors indicated before corn gets nailed on. Like a paint by number picture.

Mitchell quilt design

Window shopping for dresses at
The Mitchell National Bank? 

Friday, August 25th, we located the local Dog Park. Tori was a little overwhelmed by the number of dogs and had to be kept on her leash. We took a picnic lunch with us including lunch for the dogs. They enjoyed running freely at the far end of the park. Had a spectacular lightning storm last night.  

2017 08 20-21 Road Trip: 8/20 sold car in La Crosse, Wisconsin, 08/21 eclipse near Loveland, Iowa

Road Trip in our new Truck.

August 20: Carol drove the Camry and Bob followed her in the new truck across I90 to La Crosse, WI.  Our goal was to meet up with Carol's friend, Donna and her husband, Bill.  The purpose was to sell Donna the Camry. We owned that car since 2006 and had put only 105k miles on it. Once that was done we all had lunch then, while Donna and Bill returned to Conover, WI we drove to Ames, Iowa to spend the night. We were already getting a lot of traffic and we suspected some of it was heading south for the great 2017 eclipse event. 

Our little ones safely harnessed into their seats. They seem to have resigned themselves to the change in transportation but are still getting conditioned to the extreme height of that jump to get in.

August 21:  We got up early to headed down I35 toward St. Joseph, Mo to see the total eclipse. The traffic just south of Des Moines, Iowa was sooo Bad.  "How bad was it?"  It was so bad, we were zooming along at about 4 MPH.  This went on for almost 16 miles. Did we mention that it was also raining heavily. AND one out of two lanes were under construction. We must say this about Iowa drivers...they are very polite. They did not wait until the lane actually ran out to move over. They did not blow past cars waiting in the closing lane on the shoulder. And they did not go blasting past all the cars that had already moved over. Impressive, Iowans. AND, they even have a sense of humor. As we were driving the Highway Department digital signs kept saying traffic was slow and heavy. Then we saw one that said, "Put down your phone or we will turn off the sun." Priceless! We did try to keep our spirits up and see the bight side of continuing the long drive with thoughts of spectacular views of the sun's corona during the totality but the ongoing red line on Google Maps showing our progress and future navigation finally got to us. We bailed at the first open exit sign (even though it really didn't look like we should be there but no cops tried to stop us) and headed back North towards Des Moines. We hopped on I80 and headed west.   We stopped at a rest area just before Loveland, Iowa and noticed several people preparing for their eclipse watch. While we had not planned to stop for the eclipse, we thought, "What the heck? Why not." To our surprise we actually got to see a 95% eclipse, which isn't too bad. The sun lost all it's power to keep the temperatures up and we lost about 20 degrees to the mid-60s but the darkness that full totality places had just did not happen. It was like a cloud cover and even caused the street lights to turn on. Here are some pictures of our adventure. 

Can't say if these two have anything to do with eclipse fever, but we certainly have not experienced a pair of walking alligator suits on any other occasions when we stopped in a Rest Area.  

Seemed somewhat out of place in Iowa to us.

Bob is wearing his Safety Eclipse Glasses but Carol is not making the mistake of flouting the cardinal rule of eclipse watching. She is looking at the camera.

Safety first. Wearing proper eye protection while waiting for "darkness at noon". Well, technically, it was just after 1 pm since we were in Iowa.

Nice view and the farmland is pretty too. 

It was really windy. Don't lose your hat Carol. 

It got dark enough for the street
lights to come on at the rest area. 

 e

Well it's time to go.
Maybe I can peek at the eclipse while driving.
But, Carol said NO! and kicked me out.

Hands aren't at 10 and 2. More like 9:30 and 1, but still firmly holding the wheel. Bob did get to drive again later when we re-enter South Dakota and the speed limit went up to 80 and the rain started up again.

2017 08 11-17 Our life in Sioux Falls and a few pictures

Thursday, August 10 arrived at our apartment around 5:30 pm.  Did a quick walk through. Quite a difference from an 8 room house to a 4 room apartment. We were heading to the hotel (since we had no furniture yet), but first stopped by Rent-A-Center for a bed and box springs. Again, it's been awhile since we had to do that. At least the driving was over.

Friday, August 11, So busy. First the internet installer arrived and voila we have Wifi.  Can't survive without that.  Next our 2 pods arrived and Dale, the maintenance guy, told us where to have them deposited.  Then we did a bit of shopping for a mattress pad and sheets. We spent the rest of the day unloading the pods. By late afternoon, we didn't think we would be able to get everything unloaded because we were so tired.  Fortunately, Jane on the first floor volunteered to have her husband, Dave, to help us when he got home from work about 5 pm.   Unfortunately, that meant we had already hauled the washer/dryer up the stairs, hence the reason we were so tired. So we were able to unload both pods in one day.   Last but not least, our queen mattress and box springs were delivered early evening.  We did not spend Friday night is our apartment as we did not unpack our mattress pad and sheet and we needed to be sure of a good nights sleep in preparation of sorting through all the boxes the next day.

Saw this pair of garages and thought is was so cute(HERS and HIS). Much better than just vanity plates.

Saturday, August 12,  We started unpacking some of the important items from the boxes and organizing the apartment.   Kitchen stuff for eating, bathroom stuff, bedroom stuff for sleeping and the TV for entertainment. Did not take us long to figure out that cabinet space in the kitchen was going to be at a premium. We left 17 cabinets and a full pantry in Ohio. Now we have 10 cabinets. Thankfully our RV comes with a pantry and lots of storage space. In the interim, we have resorted to absconding with half the linen closet for kitchen items. And we still have stuff in boxes. It's one of our projects to sort through everything again and make sure we need everything we brought with us.  So everyone knows, the pups were great on the two day drive and were very concerned about the constant in and out while we unloaded our pods. As a well-deserved reward, we took the dogs for a long walk along the path by the Big Sioux River, the nearby park. They really needed it after being cooped up for more than 4 straight days.  

Bob made a friend on our walk with the dogs. A somewhat quite fellow, but is always there.

Neither of the dogs see the attraction.

Sunday, August 13th. More of the same, sorting through boxes, with a little free time to wander around the neighborhood shopping for a few necessities. We quickly discovered that a single A/C wall unit just couldn't reach to the opposite end of the apartment back in the bedroom. Right across the street is a Kohl's, Target and Bed, Bath & Beyond. What more could we want. Two fans circulate air very nicely.

Monday: August 14th. Drove to the dealer and picked up the truck.

 It looks black in this photo but it's really a very dark brown. Ram 3500 Cummins diesel turbo, 8 foot bed, towing package (see below). Going to take some miles to get accustomed to driving this beast. Thanks to our son-in-law, Dave, for valuable information about diesel engines. Our dealer salesman said that diesel's need to have a break-in period so "drive it like you just stole it". We assume that means take some long trips and open it up on the highway.

Fifth wheel hitch already installed in the bed of the truck.

Tuesday: August 15th.  More shopping, had to return one fan and get a different one that puts out more volume. We have been holding off on grocery shopping but ran out of food so dinner was at Olive Garden. Don't you just hate it when you have to dine out. A dreary and rainy day. 

Wednesday: August 16th.  We have located the local grocery store. Our first foray a couple days ago was for eggs, milk and bread. Now shopping was for standards like meat so we didn't have to eat out again. We walked through every aisle just to see what was available. We are going to have to start trying a lot of new products or find a second store as some items we are used to buying are not available. As it rained on and off all day, it did not make for a pleasant shopping experience. The one upside is a store employee fills you bags, puts the bags in the cart, pushed the cart to your car and puts them in the trunk for you. Now that's service!

Thursday: August 17. The sun came out and so did we. First, we took the dogs out for a short walk while some laundry finished drying. There was a possible specialty store where we thought some our our favorite Trader Joe's items might be procured. Alas, the prices were not Trader Joe's worthy and will not be on our shopping routine. We decided to take the truck out for a spin on the highway to get a feel for the ride. Bob did the driving while I played with some buttons just to see what they did. On our way back, we decided to take a detour and ended up in Falls Park, downtown Sioux Falls.   

Bob at Falls Park which originally was a prison quarry for the pink Sioux quartzite, also known as Jasper quartzite. The river was diverted to allow the prisoners to mine the stone for their prison walls and cobblestones. It is some of the oldest and hardest rock in the world. The local communities have many buildings constructed from this material that are still standing today, including the Sioux Falls Courthouse.

The Queen Bee Mill - this small building held the water driven turbine. It was attached to the shaft of the grist machines in the building behind which was a seven story building before burning down. The wheat was not ground by stones but with steel machines, the height of modern milling. It was only open for two years as there was frequently not enough water or wheat for production and the company went bankrupt.

2017 08 09 Lots of Driving.. then dinner in Davenport, Iowa at The Machine Shed

We did a lot of driving today. 

We left our hotel in Dublin, Ohio about 8:20 am ET and arrived in Davenport, Iowa about 6:20 pm CT.  There were miles and miles of mid-west farms. Since we usually drive during the spring or fall through Indiana and Illinois, we have not seen the seas of waving golden tassels atop the medium green corn stalks and dark green soybeans fields, over-arched by clear baby-blue skies with scattered puffy white clouds. Each farm seemed to be hundreds of acres with dirt lanes just wide enough for the farmer's pick-up. Very Norman Rockwellian and peaceful. Nothing of interest to report until dinner. 

This was a fun place to have dinner.
It was right across the street from our hotel.

The theme was country charm and farmyard humor.

I had a pint of Farmer Brown Ale.
Brewed locally in Davenport.
Nice Can. Is that "Farmer Brown"?

Carol had a Moscato Strawberry Lemonade.
I think it was at least two pints. 

2017 08 -7, 08 All... packed... up...

Dakota: "Hey Tori, What does that sign say?"
Tori: " I don't know Dakota, but it can't be good."

Dakota: "Hey Tori what are these big cubes?"
Tori: "I don't know Dakota, but it can't be good."

Photo by Jennifer

Bob: "Carol, can you believe it, we sold the house and everything we own is stored in these two pods"
Carol:  Yes, Bob and all we have to do is pack up the car with Tori and Dakota and head out"

Dakota: "Well Tori I'm just going to lay here on the front porch."
Tori: " Me too, Dakota, I'm not going anywhere."

Sitting on the floor in our family room, because our chairs are all packed up.
At least I have TV and WIFI.

photo by Ann

The sellers signing party, 

We are on our current back porch. 
Soon it will have new owners.
Now this is how to sell your house.