June 2nd - Adrian, Minnesota

We got up this morning and went to the Mitchell Corn Palace. It was worth seeing. It is amazing what people will do to drum up some tourism. According to the story the reason for starting the Corn Palace was to lure people to the area by showing them that corn was a viable crop in South Dakota. By the way, we never saw any corn west of the Missouri River, in South Dakota. As soon as we crossed the river we started seeing corn fields.
http://www.cornpalace.org/

All the ornamentation that you see is an agri-product, mostly corn although rye grass was one of the other things mentioned. The "balls" and towers appear to be of standard construction. The building exterior is completely redone in a new scene every fall. It takes about 200 acres of local crop land to grow the materials used.

 One of the murals on the inside of the auditorium.

 Zoomed in on the cowboy. You can begin to see the different colored ears of corn.

Zoomed in on the horses head.

 The above mural is at the far left of the auditorium.

 Kathy posing.

 After the Corn Palace we went back out to the Interstate. I had never been to a Cabela's sporting goods store and there was one at the exit we used so Kathy dropped me off and she went to a Walmart in the same area to buy some groceries. The Cabela's was nice but after seeing all the wildlife at the museums we have been at recently it was a little of a let down. The certainly do a have a LOT of stuff. It was interesting. $3,000 for a 9.9 hp boat motor. I was stunned. $16,000 sale price for a place old used fishing boat out front. It had a 115 hp motor and another much smaller one. People must be nuts! Tell me again how many people are not keeping up with their mortgage payments.

After Cabela's/Walmart we went back to the campground, packed up and headed for Minnesota. We stopped at a rest area and Kathy heated up some hot dogs and we finished off the potato salad she made the other day.

We arrived in Adrian during the mid-afternoon. We would have went further but this campground looked like the best deal around, by far. The campground is in the city park. There is room for over one hundred units here. They have anything from tent space to full hook ups with 50 amp electric. I think our site with full hook up, WiFi, cable TV and 50 amp service is $26/night, including tax. There is also a very nice pool. It has water in it and looks inviting but they are still balancing the chemicals. It probably won't be open tomorrow.

At supper time we walked a couple of blocks to a steakhouse Kathy had spotted on the way in. This place is really big inside and can seat hundreds.

 Yes, my prime rib was as good as it looked. A trip to the soup/salad bar was part of the meal. This was only supposed to be a 12 oz piece of meat but it had to be larger. I brought the yeast roll and a piece of the prime rib home with me for a snack. Three hours later and I'm still far to full to want a snack.

Kathy had a fish platter with broiled walleye and some other types of fish/seafood. She said it was excellent. She also had a bowl of soup which she said was also quite good.

We walked back to the campground and spent over an hour sitting outside. There are quite a few people here. It reminds me of one of my favorite movies, Doc Hollywood. There are numerous kids, of all ages, walking, or riding bikes, up and down the gravel drives around the campground. Diagonally across from us a guy is playing a bean bag game, Kathy said it is called cornhole, with his son while another guy is cooking something for all of them on a grill. Next to us, opposite the side we set on, is another family. It appears that Grandpa and Gramma rode their Harley to the campground to spend the day with them. The Harley fired up about a half hour ago and the older couple left on it.

This is a nice place. We plan on staying here two nights and heading for central Iowa Monday morning.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.