Advertisement
The Corn Palace (Mitchell, SD)
Awesome. It is made entirely of corn and grains!! Wow...five days, 2800 miles, nine tanks of gas, 7 lemonades, three nights of camping, 2 hotel check-ins, and 1 stop asking for directions later and my sister and I are finally in Columbia, SC. These past five days have gone by insanely fast, but we have seen so many new things.
Day three started off with us jetting to see the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. It was such an amazing building that was built entirely of ears of corn and grains freshly grown from South Dakota. Each year, they rebuild the Corn Palace to a new theme and it has been being rebuilt since the 1890s (except some years during the wars). It is the only corn palace in the world and entirely free to visit. One of my favorite parts was where visitors put their location on the pin-maps. I was proud to be the first to place the pin on Juneau, AK. There were some others from Alaska and some as far away as Europe. It was absolutely amazing to see since Mitchell, SD is actually a really small place.
After browsing through the corn history, we headed to the Story Lady Doll and Toy Museum
in Albert Lea, Minnesota. It was quite what we expected but for 2 bucks we got to take a nice stroll down memory lane as we browsed the toys and dolls from our youth and our favorite stories that a local lady had collected. We also found out that Marion Ross (aka Mrs Cunningham from Happy Days) was from Albert Lea and the building next door was named after her. She is even going to be in Albert Lea on June 6th to perform a play for the opening of her new building. Too bad we missed her by a week.
After exploring the museum and crossing into Iowa, we made our way South towards our campsite in Waterloo, Iowa. We finally got to George Wyth National Park and then headed off to get some grub before sleeping for the night. Unfortunately, we set up our tent in a bad location as the tree above us dropped a bunch of "jelly" on us and all over the tent. It was a long night also as a severe thunderstorm passed through the area causing insane thunder, strong winds that shook our tent, and very close lightning. We even found out
the next day that someone in Waterloo had been struck by lightning.
The next morning, we crawled out of the tent after very little sleep, cleaned off the tent, changed, and jumped in the car to head to the Fields of Dreams movie site in Dyersville, Iowa. After getting a little confused by the directions, we turned down the drive to see the infamous baseball diamond (and our second Kevin Costner movie site). Too bad there wasn't any corn so it didn't quite have the same appeal. Next, we drove another 60 or so miles to Dubuque, Iowa...one of my favorite cities of the entire trip. It was kind of big but spread out and the area that we went into was full of old brick buildings and had a nice little feel to it. We took this small cable car known as the Fenelon Place Elevator and chatted with the old man that operated the elevator. Apparently, in the late 1890s, a man liked to walk up to his place at lunchtime and take a nap after eating. The only problem was it took so long to walk around this small hill that he was always late returning
to work. So, to solve his problem, he built the elevator up the hill so that he could nap more. It burnt down a couple times and eventually became a charging service, but it has been rebuilt into a cable car and now costs only $2.00 roundtrip for a ride. The old man operating it even gave us some good travel tips and even gave us a map of Dubuque since it was kind of confusing since no streets were clearly signed. The best part about the elevator though was the view from the top. At that point, you can look out from the elevator and see Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois all separated only by the Mississippi River.
After the elevator ride, we took off to the South about 5 miles and explored a little place called the Crystal Lake Caverns. The caves are still 90% growing and stay at a constant 51 degrees F all of the time. We were provided a tour of the place where the guy told us about the stalactites and stalagmites, the straw-crystals, the difference between the black and white onyx, the cave lifeline, and the miners that explored the caves in the
1880s. It was absolutely amazing as we weaved our way underground along the 3/4 mile trail that they had put in and even ran into a sleeping bat in one of the passageways.
After the caves, we passed through into Illinois and then hit some severe thunderstorms where my patience was really tested. When I hopped out of the car to pump gas, I ended up in about 6 inches of freezing water and was soaking wet all of the way to our campsite in Spartsburg, Indiana. I really liked the Yogi Bears Jellystone Park though and we saw a small turtle by our campsite. There was a nice little lake too that would have been perfect for fishing. That night (last night) went a lot better as it was warmer and it didn't rain at all during the night.
We got up this morning and passed by Louisville, Kentucky; Knoxville, Tennessee; Asheville, North Carolina; and ended up in Columbia, SC today. We got to see the Kentucky Bluegrass region, the Smoky Mountains, and some gorgeous scenery (including some hawks) on our way here. We tried to stop at the Biltmore Estate in NC but the price kept
us from being able to see the entire building. All we got was the grounds as we passed on. Now, we're here in Columbia and I can't wait to move into the University tomorrow. Now, I am off to bed after the long roadtrip!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.12s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 11; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0896s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb