South Dakota

Today we're leaving the home of the Corn Palace and heading further west. Level farm and ranch land opened up for the Missouri River before returning.

Wall Drug signs dot the highway for hundreds of miles before we finally get there. We like the place and are stopping for lunch so don't bug us already.

 We stopped here a few years ago and found the place unique and planned our trip to have time to stop again. The drug store started to gain prominence when, in the depression, they started to put signs along the highway inviting travelers to stop for free iced water. People stopped and the store grew from there.

 The drug store is a small part of the operation now. All kinds of specialty shops cover a full city block. It's all rustic and western themed. Grammie's filling out a few postcards before we have lunch and get our free water. They also have coffee for 5 cents. I had a few cups.

You may have heard of the brutal winter storm that went thru here about 3 weeks ago. 2 days of freezing rain, then winds of up to 80 miles an hour then 44 inches of snow. Over 5 thousand cattle carcasses have been found and thousands more are expected to be found in the gullies still full of up to 20' of snow. We saw dozens of dead animals along the interstate as we got nearer to Rapid City, the epicenter of the storm.

 We were a little concerned about whether our campground was open for business after the storm damage but everything's fine. Hooked up and raring to go.

One of my favourite drives is the Custer State Park so with time to kill, lets do it again. The welcome committee just proved this was the place to be. 

 The scenery was incredible and the winding roads provided new vistas at every turn. All lakes in the park are man made. I read that in the brochure; just proves I CAN read.

 We did this drive in 2010 and you can check that blog for more in depth info; we're just skimming this time. One of the perks of the park drive is that you get to see Mt. Rushmore, maybe a bit in the distance, but still cool. And you save the exorbitant fee at the Mt. Rushmore viewing area. Hey, we're retired and poor.

 The park is one of the greatest places we've been to to see such great scenery and geological marvels.

 The other part of the park, after the mountain drive is the plains where all the animal viewing occurs. Buffalo as far as you can see kind of reminds you of what the plains must have looked like hundreds of years ago.

Pronghorn Antelope also make the park home and seem unconcerned with our prying photography. We spent most of the day driving thru the park, seeing hundreds of animals and enjoying the drive. This is one of the few places we've seen where we were excited to return. We try to travel to new areas so we don't repeat our travels but this year we came back and loved it!

Oh, by the way, we saw Mt Rushmore again. Bonus!

The Corn Palace

Today is a long drive so we're off before the sun comes up. So we're travelling by moon light. We're leaving Minnesota and heading to South Dakota. The drive today was very windy (why is it always a head wind?).

We arrived without problem at our rest stop in Mitchell, South Dakota. Pull thru site, full hookups and internet, our little slice of heaven.

Now, if you were a world traveler like us, you would know that Mitchell SD is the home of the only Corn Palace in the world. Not the largest or the most spectacular, the ONLY!. How could one pass such an opportunity by?

The original corn palace was built in 1892 to showcase the bountiful crops in the region. Farmers started displaying samples of their crops on the exterior of the building and it has grown from there. 

The outside of the huge building is completely covered with corn and grains. Each mural is designed by local artists and then a template is attached to which the corn is nailed. The murals are displayed for a year then removed and replaced with new ones.

This mural is in progress and you can see the pattern behind the corn.

This is a finished mural. You can see the individual corn cobs in the picture. Look 2 pictures back to see how good this looks from a distance (extreme right mural).

Boxes of different coloured corn arrive at the work area. Each colour is grown in a remote field to prevent cross pollination and dilution of the unique colours. 

Then each cob is cut lengthwise and to a specified length. Over 275 thousand cobs are nailed to the building to form all the different murals. 

The parts of the building that are not murals and not covered with corn are covered with tied bundles of rye, oats and sour dock. Over 3,000 bushels of grains complete the wall coverings.

The building is used all the time with local sports and community activities as well a graduations and weddings. 

The interior of the sports area is surrounded by corn murals as well. These aren't changed every year like the outside is. On the right, outside frame is a huge theatre seating area and big name entertainers have played here over the years. Just last week, Willie Nelson was here. USA Today called the basketball court "the Boston Garden of the Midwest". 

This is one of the interior murals. No paint is used, all shades are natural corn colours.

Now you have to admit that we go out of our way to bring new and unique items to our blog. I'll bet you've never heard of the Corn Palace and now you're an expert. Amaze you friends. No thanks necessary, it's all part of the service we provide.

Sault Ste Marie to Rochester Minnesota

Remember that bridge I referred to in the last post? This is the bridge to Sault Ste Marie USA. Kinda sags a bit in the middle but we made it OK. 

The colours were beautiful. We drove mostly on back roads today and enjoyed the scenery. 

It would have been more beautiful if the sun had been shining but the rain started. This is our lunch break at the Wisconsin Welcome Centre.

Wisconsin was colourful as well and the rain finally stopped so we enjoyed the colours as we drove. 

Arrived at our rest for the next 2 days. Then time to hook up and get going again. 

More scenery as we drive through Wisconsin and into Minnesota. Not many leaves have fallen yet.

Our next stop is a lovely rustic campground near Rochester Minnesota 

The owners of the campground have a great carriage collection which we checked out. They had a dozen or more exquisite carriages built well over 100 years ago. Very impressive.

Just in front of Harvey was this pretty stream. After all the flooding this year, I'm a bit nervous sitting near any running water. 

As you all know, Rochester Minnesota is the home of the famous Mayo clinic so we decided to drive in and have a look. We couldn't find the hospital but did get a picture of this Del Monte water tower. Way cool. I've always said amazing things are just waiting to be discovered. Corny, huh.

A Train Ride

The Algoma Central Railway runs a tour train out of Sault Ste Marie to Agawa Canyon. We've heard of it for years and finally decided it's time we saw what it was all about. The one day wilderness excursion transported us 114 miles over towering trestles and alongside pristine northern lakes through awesome granite rock formations. Grammie spent the time crocheting baby hats.

 The cool thing about going over trestles on a train is that all you can see is straight down. There's no barrier or fence giving you the feeling that your well protected. 

On the other side of the dam above is the spillway and outlet pipes hundreds of feet below. This one dam makes enough electricity to power 50,000 homes. Shocking isn't it?

Dozens of lovely lakes pass by the windows as we slowly make our way through the verdant wilderness. 

The day started out foggy; we could hardly see the trees passing by the windows, but as the sun rose, more and more scenery started to become visible. 

After descending into the canyon, we arrived and disembarked for and hour and a half of exploring the scenery in the park. 

Of course, our first priority was to have our picnic lunch. This was the only spot we saw any wildlife on the trip; a chipmunk came out and begged for a snack which we gratified. 

We then hiked for the next hour, checking out the scenery. You can tell it wasn't particularly balmy that day. 

The canyon is very remote and pristine. It's known for its lovely falls. We managed to get to all of them before it was time to leave. It was a great train tour with lovely scenery. I guess everyone saw it all going to the canyon because a lot were sleeping on the way back.

At the end of a long day we finally arrived back in Sault Ste Marie. That bridge in the background will be our gateway to the US tomorrow. We just found out that the US financial issue was resolved so it looks like we may get to see Yellowstone Park after all.

Heading out early

Well, it's that time again. In fact, it's earlier than that time. We're leaving a few days early so we can head a bit north for some Northern Ontario fun. Looks like a lovely drive doesn't it? 

About 5 hours gets us to Britt, ON, on the Magnetiwan River. The most common fish in this river is the Muskie. They have to throw back the small ones; any under 56". I wouldn't go fishing for them in our canoe, they would take us on a Nantucket Sleigh Ride (that's what whalers call it when their dories are pulled around by whales).

Oops, another breakdown. We blew an hydraulic hose just as we arrived at the camping resort. Everything stopped working so we went looking for a motel for the next few days. Once we saw the options, we decided to get it fixed, pronto!

You can't see the guy laying under the back of Harvey, replacing the hose. As usual, these things aren't simple and after running back and forth to Parry Sound for parts and new hoses, our total golfing budget for 2 years disappeared. Nah, I'll just take it out of our kids inheritance, which doesn't leave much. Well, as they say, don't ride the horse if you can't take the fall. Actually I just made that up; pretty good though.

Repairs made and still on schedule; that doesn't happen too often. Can't go through Sudbury without seeing smokestacks.

Arrived in Sault St Marie without problems (whew) and got set up in a lovely campground.

 

After we picked up our train tickets for tomorrow we decided to check out the Bushplane museum, well, actually I convinced Grammie that would be a good idea. If we hadn't gone I'd of regretted it for days. Grammie gets to regret it immediately so it's a win-win, right.

The museum is full of planes that opened the north and serviced isolated communities. This was a commuter plane that flew out of Slave Lake. Talk about isolated. I should know, I grew up near there.

This DHC-3 Otter is a typical bush plane. Aren't you glad I'm educating you on planes? No thanks necessary. 

This Norseman is parked beside a typical dock from years gone by. I'm ready to go fishing for 6' Muskies. 

They did have a few other items on display. I've heard of Stanley Steamers for years but this is the first one I've seen. Another item off my bucket list! 

A pilot for the Ontario forest service invented this tank which mounts above the floats on this Beaver. A pipe beside the float pulls in water and fills the tank which is then dumped on forest fires. Each tank held 80 gallons of water. Now water bombers hold 20,000 gallons, but this is where it started.

There are a lot of  bush and firefighting planes in the museum but I've kept it brief; you're welcome. 

Grammie is more a boat person and was drawn to this ambivalent vessel. Note the name: "Yankcanuck". Dual registry I suppose. If you thought this was exciting, just wait for tomorrow.