Day Eleven, Stalked!

Contrary to what you might be thinking, I'm not being stalked by the typical paparazzi despite having worked in Hollywood for so long and having my name at the end of the credits of the lesser-known reality show, "I Wanna Be On Soap Star" on the even lesser-known SoapNet. I should be glad about that I suppose, although what we were stalked by today might be even scarier...CORN! Although, not horror scary, like that film "Children of the Corn," at least I don't think so having never seen the movie before.

We stayed in Mitchell, South Dakota last night, which was really just a good stopping place on the map on this long driving stretch to get to Chicago. However, we also chose it because we knew it had an attraction to make the stop worthwhile: The Mitchell Corn Palace! It's definitely one of those "corny" tourist traps and, in fact, the original was actually built in 1892 because the town officials wanted to put Mitchell on the map as a desirable destination. It was also built to prove Lewis and Clark wrong as they originally thought the land in this part of the country would not be suitable for growing crops and so the town built a palace made entirely of corn to celebrate their successful harvest. While the town is still pretty small, there were quite a few people besides us checking out the Corn Palace, which has the unique draw of being made out of corn as well as free admission, but stays in business because people like me just can't resist buying some sort of souvenier from the "World's Only Corn Palace!" Who can resist that? Obviously not me as I now have yet another shot glass to add to my quickly growing collection!

While it may have been a tourist trap, it was actually pretty impressive to see the numerous murals on the outside of the palace made entirely out of corn.

The visitor brochure described them as "corn by number" art since the local artists use 11 different colored corn to create the many images, featuring a different theme each year. They were still working on completing some of the murals today, painstakingly nailing each ear of corn to the outer wall of the building, turning ears of corn into art right before our eyes! I thought they were pretty cool! There was even one inside the palace of Mount Rushmore, which was amusing since I was just at the real thing yesterday, and while the corn version was a good artistic representation, I still think the real thing is much more impressive and will accept no substitutes, even those made entirely of corn! Anyway, I think my dad and I are very lucky to have been able to visit such a unique place, especially since it's the only one like it in the world! We may be corny, but we had fun! The "corny" theme of the day continued in another interesting way this afternoon. We were just driving along I-90 in Minnesota, minding our own business and commenting on the unique name of the town Blue Earth that we saw on a highway sign when we read the next sign about the Jolly Green Giant Statue which just so happened to be the trademark of Blue Earth! We had nowhere to go the rest of the day except for our hotel so we weren't in a hurry and these random roadside attractions are just the kinds of things I wanted to see along the way in addition to the major sights, so we couldn't resist pulling off the highway to check him out! He sure was tall, I only came up to the top of his boots! He's definitely been eating his vegetables, especially lots of corn I imagine since it seems to be the most popular crop around! And he wasn't all alone out there in the corn fields. He had some friends nearby and my Dad didn't want to ignore them just because they weren't quite as tall or green as the Giant so he went over and introduced himself.

Isn't this a great photo? I love it! So much so that I decided to make a new friend of my own. Isn't he cute?

The Jolly Green Giant in Blue Earth, Minnesota might very well be the most random sighting of the trip thus far! So it shouldn't be a surprise that I just had to buy yet another shot glass commemorating this once in a lifetime experience! At least the nice thing about shot glasses as souveniers is that they usually only cost $5 or less, they don't take up much room in my car, and the collection will be great to display in my next apartment! I can't wait to see them all lined up, it will be pretty sweet!

Well, I guess that's all for today. I should actually be in bed before midnight for the first time this trip, thank Corn! Tomorrow, we're headed to Chicago via the Field of Dreams. Yes, the same one from the movie. They actually built a baseball diamond in a corn field in Iowa and it still exists today as a tourist attraction. They built it and I'm coming! Then off to Chicago where we hope the weather will cooperate so we can go on an architectural tour of downtown on a boat on the Chicago River. If it rains, we might check out one of the museums - I saw on the map that there's a Chicago Sports Hall of Fame and even a McDonald's Museum of some sort, both of which could be interesting perhaps. We'll just have to wait and see as usual! Think good thoughts for me!