MEDORA MUSICAL

We arrived in Medora, North Dakota today.  We are staying at the Red Trail RV Park.  There are only 2 RV parks in this town.  The National Park has camp sites, but no hook-ups.  Most of you know that I don't do no hook-ups. We are staying here 5 nights.  We used their Good Sam discount and our cost was $189 for 5 nights.  The sites are pretty level, gravel, and they have full hook-ups.  I think this is the most expensive per night we will have on this trip.  They have 2 parts to their park.  The main part of the park is on one side of the street.  That is where the bath/showers are located and their laundry.  We are in the part that is on the other side of the street.  This part is the "big rig friendly" part. Check-in was anytime after 12:00 noon and don't come early.  On our way here, we stopped at a "scenic overview" and got our first glimpse of the Badlands.

We had not been to North Dakota.  Mr. W planned for us to be in North AND South Dakota so we could mark them off our list.  He didn't want to just drive across the state line into North Dakota.  So, he planned a few nights in Medora.  One of the things we decided to do was go to the Medora Muscial.  The musical is outdoors and tomorrow night is the last performance for 2020.  We decided to get tickets for tonight because the tickets are non-refundable.  If they cancel for bad weather, you have to reschedule your tickets.  We decided if the weather was bad, we could reschedule for tomorrow night and still save our tickets/money.  We have no intentions of traveling back just for the tickets anytime soon.  It worked out pretty good!

The musical is about the settling of North Dakota and about Teddy Roosevelt.  Teddy Roosevelt spent a lot of time in North Dakota, especially after a great tragedy in his life. Theodore Roosevelt National Park is here. Teddy played a giant part in setting up national parks and preserving lands from development. His time here convinced him to go back East and run for President. The show includes a reenactment of Teddy's charge on San Juan Hill.

Right after intermission, they had a comedian, Kermet Apoli.  He was hilarious!  I haven't laughed that hard in a while.  He catered more to the 50 and up crowd, so maybe that is why I found him so funny. But, maybe not. He was really good.

There were many talented young people performing in the musical.  The set was great. We had good seats. The wind died down.which helped and the show was very patriotic. I would definitely recommend seeing the show if you are ever in the area.

Stay tuned for what is the next thing on our "things to do."

CORN PALACE

Before we left on this trip, we had a couple of people tell us to not miss the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. The what???? There is such a place??? Well, boys and girls, yes there is.  This place is interesting and pretty impressive in its own way.  The outside of the building, all the way around the building, has murals in this year's theme, made out of corn cobs and native grasses.  Who knew????

In the late 19th Century, a number of cities on the Great Plains constructed "crop palaces" (also known as "grain palaces") to promote themselves and their products. As the idea succeeded, it spread, including: a Corn Palace in Sioux City, Iowa, that was active from 1887–1891; a Corn Palace in Gregory, South Dakota; a Grain Palace in Plankinton, South Dakota; and a Bluegrass Palace in Creston, Iowa. From 1887 to 1930, at least thirty-four corn palaces were built across the Midwest United States; only the Mitchell Corn Palace has remained intact.

Eight years before the turn of the 20th century, in 1892 (when Mitchell, South Dakota was a small, 12-year-old city of 3,000 inhabitants) the World's Only Corn Palace was established on the city’s Main Street. During it’s over 100 years of existence, it has become known worldwide and now attracts more than a half a million visitors annually. The palace was conceived as a gathering place where city residents and their rural neighbors could enjoy a fall festival with extraordinary stage entertainment - a celebration to climax a crop-growing season and harvest. This tradition continues today with the annual Corn Palace Festival held in late August each year.

By 1905 the success of the Corn Palace had been assured and a new Palace was to be built, but this building soon became too small. In 1919, the decision to build a third Corn Palace was made. This one was to be permanent and more purposeful than its predecessors. The present building was completed in 1921, just in time for the Corn Palace Festivities. That winter Mitchell hosted its first boy’s state basketball tournament. The building was considered to have the finest basketball arena in the upper Midwest area.

Today, the Corn Palace is more than the home of the festival or a point of interest of tourists. It is a practical structure adaptable to many purposes. Included among its many uses are industrial exhibits, dances, stage shows, meetings, banquets, proms, graduations arena for Mitchell High School and Dakota Wesleyan University as well as district, regional and state basketball tournaments. USA Today named the Corn Palace one of the top 10 places in America for high school basketball.

The Palace is redecorated each year with naturally colored corn and other grains and native grasses to make it “the agricultural show-place of the world”. We currently use 12 different colors or shades of corn to decorate the Corn Palace: red, brown, black, blue, white, orange, calico, yellow and now we have green corn! A different theme is chosen each year, and murals are designed to reflect that theme. Ear by ear the corn is nailed to the Corn Palace to create a scene. The decorating process usually starts in late May with the removal of the rye and dock. The corn murals are stripped at the end of August and the new ones are completed by the first of October. Just like South Dakota Agriculture, growing condition can affect production of our decorating materials and may delay the decorating process.

From 1948 to 1971, the artist Oscar Howe designed the panels. Calvin Schultz designed the murals from 1977 to 2002. From 2003 to 2017, the murals have been designed by Cherie Ramsdell. No new mural was created in 2006 due to an extreme drought. Beginning in 2018, designs have been created by Dakota Wesleyan University students. As of 2018, it costs an estimated $175,000 each time the Palace is redecorated.

The Corn Palace is known around the world as a folk-art wonder on the prairie of South Dakota.  Mural designs are created by Dakota Wesleyan University students enrolled in Digital Media and Design courses under the guidance of Associate Professor, Kyle Herges.   This partnership began with murals designed in 2019.

The Corn Palace is open everyday 8:00-5:00 and is free to go in and see the picture exhibit. There is a picture of the Corn Palace from each year in the exhibit, along with miscellaneous exhibits and memorabilia. On Wednesdays (today), they have a farmer's market in the courtyard from 4:30-7:00.  There were 4 vendors there today.  I bought some home grown tomatoes from one vendor and some fresh cream style corn from another.  Well, now we can say we've been there, done that.  Worth the visit if you are in the area.  

While in Mitchell, we stayed at Rondee's RV Park. All of the sites are gravel/grass.  It is full hook-ups and close to the freeway.  We used Passport America and it was about $35 total for 2 nights.  It is an OK place to stay for overnight, which is what most people are doing.  It was good for what we needed.  We are headed to North Dakota tomorrow.  We are staying one night in Bismarck and then on to Medora for 5 nights. It is still cold, but should warm up to 70s by weeks end.  We've been wearing jackets and all these people are looking at us like we have lost our minds!

TRAVELING TO THE DAKOTAS

 To say that 2020 has been a strange year is quite the understatement.  The first part of the year everyone was isolated, afraid to stick their head out of their house and living in fear of the C-O-R-O-N-A Virus. I'm not making light of the virus. It is real. It can be deadly. But, I'm one of those that believes the news media has tried purposely to make every American a lot more afraid of it than we should have ever been.  So, after having lived through  all the scariness for 6 months, Mr. W and I decided the heck with this, we are going to go somewhere.  Here in lies the problem with that decision.  Where can we go where we can actually go see things we have always wanted to see at wherever we ended up going? States were shutting everything down.  You might could travel to a well known destination, but that was not a guarantee that you could do anything but sit in your RV or drive by the closed "attraction" you specifically came for.

However, Mt. Rushmore has been on my bucket list since we first started traveling.  Mr. W kept saying that it was out of the way of wherever we were going. He kept putting me off for many reasons. I just went along with missing it because he does all the planning of our trips, so I didn't feel like I could say much.  BUT, thank God for Kristi Noem! She is the Republican Governor of South Dakota, who refused to shut down South Dakota.  Soooooo, guess what I'm on my way to see????? You got it, Mt. Rushmore!

We left Texas on September 5 and it was 100 degrees or close to it E-V-E-R-Y day.  We were sure looking forward to getting into some cooler weather.  Our first stop was in Oklahoma.  We stayed the night in the RV park at the Winstar Casino.  If you sign up for their "rewards" card (not a credit card) and not use it until you get there, you will get 1 night at the RV park free.  We were only staying one night and we got it free.  Can't beat that! We did go over to the casino to check it out.  We are not gamblers. We take our $20, play the slots, and when it is gone, so are we. I will say that they took our temp as we entered. Everyone was required to wear a mask (even though I did see several people take theirs off when they sat down at a machine). No one was social distancing. The RV park is very nice.  Level, concrete pads, its own swimming pool, big club house, showers/bathrooms, and full hook-ups.

The next night we stayed in Kansas, the third night in Norfolk, Nebraska (which is the home of Johnny Carson), and tonight we are in Mitchell, South Dakota.  Tomorrow we are going to visit the Corn Palace. Yep, it is made out of corn.  This should be interesting.  Yesterday, a front came through and dropped the temps.  It has been rainy, windy, and cold.  It is, however, suppose to keep warming up over the next several days.  By the end of the week we will be in North Dakota and the highs will be around 80 with 40s at night.  Sounds pretty perfect.  

I took a few pics while we were traveling today. They are kind of blurry. It is hard to not be blurry when you are taking pictures going 65 mph down a bumpy highway.  As we were driving through Nebraska, you saw fields and fields of corn and soybeans. But, the colors immediately made me think of the words, "For amber waves of grain". America the Beautiful, my home sweet home.

Some people literally bring their home with them!

THE WHOLE REASON FOR THE TRIP

When we left Watkins Glen, we headed for Niagara Falls.  This destination may be our last, but it was the whole reason for the trip.  Seeing Niagara Falls was on our bucket list.

We arrived in Niagara Falls on a Monday and we checked into the Cinderella Motel and RV Park.  Catchy name, huh.  One of our friends said that it sounded like a w***e house! Haha!  Well, the motel does look like one of those motels that has been around since the 1960's and the RV spots are very close together.  The sites are gravel on top of clay so there are big ruts in a lot of the sites that the owners don't really try to fix.  The sites have full hook-ups and we got a weekly rate of $265.00.  That is about $37 a night, which is about $30 a night cheaper than any other RV park in the area.
We met up with other couples so we have 18 people total travelling in our caravan right now.

Tuesday morning we went downtown and got our first glimpse of the falls.  Wow!  That's all I can say.  I've seen lots of pictures through my life, but nothing comes close to seeing the falls in real life.  Amazing.  Such force and such beauty.  The weather Tuesday was perfect for a ride on Maid of the Mist.  This boat takes you right up to Bridal Veil Falls (the falls on the American side) and also Horseshoe Falls (the falls on the Canadian side).  They were recognizing Breast Cancer Awareness month so the rain ponchos they were passing out were pink.  We put those on, tied the hood around our neck to keep it on, and walked on the boat.  I had read to stand in the middle part of the boat if you wanted to stay semi-dry.  So, that's where we stood.  We stayed semi-dry.  There is such force from the falls that water and mist are everywhere.  It was hard to get good pictures because of the people but also because my camera and lens were staying constantly wet.

When we got off the boat, we got on the trolley and went over to the Cave of the Winds.  Cave of the Winds is not a cave.  There use to be a ledge that stuck out about 100 feet in front of the falls.  The ledge fell off and now there are wooden steps and platforms that take you from the bottom of the falls up to a point where you are about 5 feet from the front of the falls.  The wind and the water are crazy.  You get these lovely yellow rain panchos to wear here.  The only problem was that the hood had nothing to tie to keep it on your head and the wind is much worse here, so it is NOT going to stay on your head.  They also provide sandals to wear.  Wait, what?  Sandals?  Yes, sandals.  You don't have to wear them, but they strongly suggest that you do.  They tell you that your shoes will get wet.  Mr. W decided to wear his hiking boots and not wear the sandals.  His shoes were a little damp when we first walked away, but not wet and his feet were not cold from wearing the sandals in that cold weather in that cold water.

When we finished Cave of the Winds, we had lunch in the park, caught the trolley back to the Visitor's Center, and called it a day.  Pretty awesome day.