The next day saw us at the Walmart parking lot in Cedar Falls, Iowa. So far, so good. We have been averaging about 500 or so miles per day. We had not asked for permission to park there and so when a guy drove up, parked close to our RV and started to walk around it, I quickly hid all evidence of beer, thinking it might be the Walmart manager asking us to leave the premises. Turned out that this guy was interested in how the towing (of our truck) device worked. We found out that he had graduated from the Fuquay School of Business at Duke and was considering buying an RV. I quickly informed him that ours would be up for sale at the end of the year!
Our third night was at Mitchell, SD. When we got there, there was just one other RV in the parking lot. When we woke up in the morning, it looked like RV city. Apparently, this is a popular spot for Rvers to overnight.
Mitchell is famous for its Corn Palace. So I coaxed John into visiting it. I remember seeing a program on it on TV and somehow, in my memory it was this incredibly wonderful edifice with the exterior fully covered in Corn Art (sounds corny does it not?). What i found was a brick building with a little bit of the upper part of the building covered in corn and corn husk. The inside is a theater (where events are held) and the only interesting feature was the murals on the wall above the stage. I was sorely disappointed. I think there was much ado about not too much.
A view of the Corn Palace and the front facade.
We enjoyed a visit to the museum of pre-historic indians that lived in the Mitchell area around 1000 AD. The excavations are still going on - they only work during the month of June as there is not enough money to keep it going all year. The site itself is enclosed in a climate controlled building called the Archeadome. The site and the accompanying exhibits were very interesting, as was the 15 minute video on the people and their lives.
Below are two photos of the "Bull Boat" exhibited in the Archeadome. So called as the boat was made by stretching the bison hide over a framework. The Mandan tribe used this as a boat.
