MINNESOTA & THE CORN PALACE

The only other time I have seen the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota was with Susan when we traveled to Wisconsin several years ago. Until then I had not even heard of it. At that time we toured the inside and appreciated all the things made entirely of corn and parts of corn: cobs, tassel, husks, kernels. This time we simply parked and walked around for views of the outside.

At the bottom of the street lamps are corn cobs.

On the road again we made our usual rest stop to stretch legs and use the restroom. Here I saw for the first time that I recall, Ground squirrels. They were abundant here at the rest stop and scampered all about the grounds and parking lot. To me they slightly resemble chipmunks with similar markings on their body, but are much body with a longer face and flatter tail.

Our drive this day was shorter than any of the other days so we had time to linger around and take our time. Susan had read about a buffalo park and wanted to take a trip through it and view the Buffalo.

Um, we paid the $7 to drive the mile and a half, climb a short viewing deck and peer out at what we THINK was a herd of buffalo way far in the distance. Could have been cows for all we knew. There was a short walking/biking trail we did not take that leads further in toward the buffalo range, but doubtful if you would show much more.

We did get a nice view of a couple of Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes!

On our way to our next campground – Everett Park Campground we stopped to have our picnic dinner at the most beautiful rest area I have ever been to. It did not lend itself to a photo but I think it was quite new and very well done with a children’s play area, fenced pet walk and huge building that looked like it housed at least a visitor center, was strictly for restrooms.

Then home to camp just outside of the town of Sherburn MN.

And as evening falls, we find ourselves in an almost empty campground except for the hosts and their friends.

Susan calls them fire flies, I call them lightning bugs. We don’t have these in Washington or anywhere in the west that I know of, and I don’t know where they stop. They remind me not only of my childhood when we would catch them, but in my early adulthood watching and appreciating them from the porch. We watched some this evening. I learned here that sadly they may be facing extinction as ‘Fireflies face threats including habitat loss and degradation, light pollution, pesticide use, poor water quality, invasive species, over-collection, and climate change.’

Some observations about our little time so far in Minnesota: it is very green and lush here in farm country, and not just the crops. Grass, trees and bushes all are green and healthy looking here; there are lots of wind turbines; the air quality has improved as the fire smoke has lifted, at least for now; FLIES!!!! Annoying and plentiful and hard to get free from.