We visit Wall Drug

June 1, 2019

Here we are, finally into June, just 15 days til the caravan starts. I think we are ready, I always have doubts about what I might have missed, goes with the territory I guess.

Today we visited Wall Drug. This store covers all of one large block and consists of many shops under the one roof. Most of it is designed in an old west theme, and is a destination all of it's own.  It even has a soda fountain and a cafe, where for a nickle, a Veteran can get a cup of coffee and a donut, I had to pay for mine. Since we were here in 2002, they have added on "out back" where there is a western art gallery and some more shops.

T'his place really did start as a Pharmacy/Drug store

There are five different entrances

You can see where the tourists are headed

The main hall way, the hardest part is trying to figure out which way to go, what store to go in first.

The Badlands in stained glass

Metal work, this store had lot's of pretties, but we didn't buy anything, don't have an empty wall in the house to put anything on.

Pretty door

They actually still have a drug store in here

This "lady" isn't real

Which way to go??

They even have a chapel for the weary traveler!

Even some antiquities

Phil thought this was hilarious!

This has been around for quite awhile, but still means something today!

Phil took this for my brother, Steve

                                                                                                                                                                           

Mitchell to Wall, SD

May 31, 2019

On the road again today. Driving down an interstate can be somewhat boring, especially when you are looking at the same view all day, a ribbon of highway in front of us and green grass, and cows to the sides. We did see a few antelope towards the end of the day. Also saw a couple of dump trucks with multiple axles.

Views of the road ahead and the scenery to either side of the road.

You count them, based on what I can see in the back, it doesn't look like they are dulies. There are two dumpsters here and the back one looks longer than the front one. I think there are 10 axles on the back.

At about mile marker 265 on 90 there is a rest area that is also a Lewis & Clark Interpretation Center. We stopped there to see the Dignity of the Earth and Sky statue that is an amazing piece of art work.

To put it in perspective, that's me standing in front of Dignity.

The back of Dignity

The view from Dignity, looking down on 90 to the town of Chamberlain and the Missouri River beyond

The skeleton of an overlarge T-pee

This is the back end of the Visitor's Center/Interpretation. This is the back end of a 'Keel Boat' of the type used on the expedition. The front end is in the building, and you can walk through a door to the outside part.

An interesting piece of art about the exhibition 

The front end of the keel boat

On the keel boat

Our site at Sleepy Hollow in Wall, SD

Sleepy Hollow campground

A visit to the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD

May 30, 2019

Partly cloudy this morning, but at least we can see some blue sky and a little bit of sun!

Today we visited the Corn Palace, where they decorate the entire outside of the building with 325,000 ears of corn, or part of the plant and approximately 3,000 bushels of rye, oat heads and sour dock. Each year in the fall, they put up a new design, which means they have to start taking the previous year's design down in June. They were starting to do this when we were here today. All of this stuff is nailed on, so the guys we talked to were using small hay forks and a variety of other tools to get this stuff off of the walls. Each ear of corn is cut in half, length-wise and then nailed to the wall (plywood). Corn doesn't come in very many colors, so the designs are made to accommodate the yellow and brown, any other color means the ears have to be painted. The designs are done by local artists. The inside of the building is a multi functional gym, used for basketball games, concerts, dances, stage shows and a variety of other uses. The intricate designs are all very interesting, as is the history of the building, what it has been used for and who performed there.

 Pretty flower baskets hung from light posts along main street. The little yellow thing in the base of the post is an ear of corn, one on each side.

Here they are starting to take last year's design down.

One of the designs of the past, even the spires are done.

Another design from the past

See how intricate the designs can get

We finally head west on I-90

May 29, 2019

We had a little farther to drive today, so we got an earlier start, 248 miles today.

It was cloudy and much cooler than what we have been used to, even in Independence. The high today was about 66, it was 61 in the rig when I got up this morning. Considered turning the fireplace on, but just put a flannel shirt on and that was good enough. We got rained on a couple of times. The first time was just as we had stopped to take some pictures at the Green Giant Statue in Blue Earth, MN. Because of the rain, we didn't explore it as closely as we might have, just took a few pictures and got back into the truck.

Also in Blue Earth, on the interstate is a Golden Stripe on the shoulder of the road. It is there to celebrate the meeting of the west coast construction crew and the east coast crew that originally built I-90, which goes from Boston to Seattle. There are sections of this road that are under construction, but it will take a long time, and most of it is pretty bad. 

Other than the Green Giant and Golden Stripe, the drive was pretty boring. I had a real hard time staying awake. 

Tonight we are parked in the Ron Dee's RV Park in Mitchell, SD. We will be here for 2 nights. Tomorrow we are going to the Corn Palace. More about that tomorrow.

We head north, to Minnesota

May 28, 2019

We only had a couple of hours to drive today, so we slept in and took our time getting out of the campground. We left Timberline about 11:45 am. We traveled east on I-80 for a little while, then north on I-35 into MN.

Traffic was light and we made pretty good time. Had some light rain, but nothing serious. We did see a lot of flooding, rivers overrunning their banks. Along the interstate the flooding is mostly farm lands. Some of these acres of rolling farm land has already been planted, we could see little green shoots sticking up out of the ground. But, a lot of this has not been planted yet. As wet as the ground is right now and as heavy as farm equipment is, its going to take a long time before the farmers can get out into these fields.

We spent the night in a very wet KOA just across the border in MN. Otherwise looked like a nice campground, but I didn't think it was quite up to KOA standards.

At last a sunny day

May 27, 2019

Happy Memorial Day to all of the families and friends who have lost a loved one who died while serving our country. Thank you for your service.

Didn't rain a drop (so far) today, was in the 70's most of the day, did get up to 81 by about 4:00 this afternoon, but there was a nice breeze (sometimes a wind), so it didn't feel to warm.

Phil put his Mr Fix-it hat today and did a few minor repairs, I worked on Caravan stuff...as usual.

On one of Phil's trips to Lowe's today, he found a Cheesecake Factory, so when he came back he asked me if I would like to out to dinner there, well it took about 1.5 seconds to say yes to that!! We brought dessert home though, was to full to eat it there.

Tomorrow we will leave here and head up to the I-90 and begin our trip west towards Great Falls. Can't wait to meet everyone on the caravan.

We move to Des Moines, IA

May 25, 2019

Against my better judgement, we have traveled north on I-35 to just west of Des Moines, IA. We are at the Timberline RV Campground in Waukee, just off I-80.
We got here about 3:00 pm, under cloudy skies and 82*.

We no sooner got here and storms started forming in Oklahoma, that round went well south of us, staying mostly in northern Missouri. Round two is fast approaching, but it looks like the worst of it will hit Missouri and northern Arkansas. This whole area is saturated with water and flooding has already become some of the worst that has been seen in many, many years. The creeks and streams have overflowed, the rivers they flow into are also reaching their maximum. In order to save the towns and farmlands from the overflow of these smaller rivers, water has to be released. The rivers up here flow into the bigger rivers south of here, the Mississippi, the White and the Arkansas Rivers. These rivers have already reached their maximum, just from the volume of water coming from the small rivers that feed into them directly in the local areas. The Arkansas River is already at flood stage and low lying areas are already threatened around Little Rock and Fort Smith. The Arkansas River, just to name one, then flows into the Mississippi, which is also fed by the Ohio. It's not looking good for the bottom lands in East Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee, but especially New Orleans.

Round two is approaching: top is a couple of hours ago, bottom is current shot. We are the green dot on the bottom shot, so it looks like once again, we have dodged a bullet. But look how far south this is going, and it hasn't actually moved very far in two hours. It's just dumping more rain where it is least needed.