The Tangrens

We got going around 9:30 and were off to our tour of tourist traps.

A while ago Derek had signed us up for a South Dakota vacation guide, which took me back. When I was around 9 we took a two week road trip out west and did similar stopping along the way as we’re doing on tis trip. To make it educational we each wrote to a state or two to request information about it and when we entered each state one of us would present our findings about it. I remember being so excited to get the information in the mail. I felt so cool when it was my time to present my state. (You’d think I’d remember which ones I had. I think one of them was Montana.) Hyrum was so excited and poured over that visitors guide saying he wanted to go here or there. The one place that he’d tell everyone he was going to was the Corn Palace. So that was the plan. Then I said “Oh we’ll have to stop at Wall drug too” and Derek said “Yeah I’ve been seeing signs for that place.” I had to laugh because you cannot miss Wall Drug unless you do it on purpose. They put signs up in ever increasing frequency starting in the previous state. In our case Wyoming. By the time you are within 25 miles or so of it they probably have 10 per mile.

And

They’re

All

Different

I don’t think we stopped on that first trip but we did this time.

I have to say that it’s impressive in its sheer size. They have maps of Wall drug…and you need them. In the backyard they have all kinds of photo opportunities but my boys were having none of it.

They just wanted to run through the water and we let them even though it was clearly posted not to. We had several adults watching and laughing at my boys.

We also saw the T-rex

That scared Hyrum to DEATH.

The story is that during the depression the owners of Wall Drug ( then just a small drug store ) began advertising free water to travelers to drum up business ( which we tasted and I can't say I'd come back for the water to be sure...but it's still free...everywhere which was a problem when we decided to meet where they gave the free water away) that and their unique advertising lead them to expand and become the gigantic store/tourist trap it is today.

We stayed too long at Wall drug ( we kept losing each other) and had to look at the badlands from afar. I hadn’t been too impressed with them the first time through so I didn’t have any real desire to see them but Derek who’d never traveled this way before wanted to see them. I felt bad.

The late nights and early mornings were catching up with the boys

But on the upswing they were much more content to simply look out the windows and see what was there and found things to look at. Imagine that. J About 15 minutes away from the Corn Palace they succumb to their fatigue and crashed.

The Corn Palace was in a word unique.

First of all I don’t know if you can tell in this picture but it’s right next to City Hall. When you walk in it looks like a movie theater or something with ticket windows. It is a free attraction so I wondered why they had they were there. Then you walked through turnstiles into this narrow room. The woman told us to follow the corn footprints around to see everything. Hyrum took that literally.

The narrow room had concessions at either side with glass display cases on the interior walls displaying exhibits about…corn of course. I don’t know why it surprised me but the building smelled like corn. I guess I figured that the outside would smell of corn but not necessarily the inside. I had no concept of what to expect inside all can say is that it was nothing like I expected.

Around the perimeter were pictures of the corn palace every year ( they change the exterior every year in September) since at least the 40’s. It was established in the late 1890’s. There is a central room that is large and has stadium seating. I didn’t pay attention too much about that as I was looking for postcards and on the wooden floor in the middle they had all kinds of gifts.

Then I noticed the scoreboards and basketball hoops. Strange. I wonder if it’s used also as a high school or junior college basketball court. It was exactly how the building was laid out. But then what is the stage for? Humm.

A big reason Hyrum wanted to go to the Corn Palace was the costumed corn character that he had named Mitchell because the town that the Corn Palace is located in is named Mitchell. When we got there we discovered that “Mitchell” otherwise known as “Cornelius” would be making an appearance in 15 minutes. Hyrum couldn’t wait. We ran to buy some postcards, wrote on them and mailed them in the corn mailbox and then followed the corn footprints to find Cornelius. When we found him Hyrum was a bit starstruck. He did finally get a picture with him. He’d keep calling him Mitchell though and so would Noah. They’d say "I can't wait to find Mitchell…um Cornelius again!" They both loved Mitchell…um Cornelius.

As we drove across the rest of South Dakota we realized more and more that it is by far the quirkiest state in the union. And they do their best to cash in whenever possible on their uniqueness. There was a roadside petrified forest surrounded by sheet metal propped up against a chain link. A little later we saw a human skeleton walking a dinosaur skeleton in some person’s farm.( I wasn’t quick enough with the camera with that one) Then further on we saw some crazy gigantic metal cow head on someone’s ranch. I saw that one coming and had my camera ready even before I knew what it was.

We had a bit of a head down and drive day and got to Minneapolis where our hotel was at 11 and were going to bed by midnight…the boys too. I just have to say that the highway system in Minneapolis is CRAZY!

The boys saw fireflies for the first time in their lives tonight.