Last year, Jon gave me a pearl necklace on the Great Wall of China for our anniversary. This morning I got a beautiful matching bracelet. We ate breakfast out on the terrace. Jon insisted on buying cinnamon rolls for breakfast. I ate one and he ate the remaining four. Let's see, each roll had 400 calories and he consumed 108% of his daily saturated fat just eating those rolls. This doesn’t count the chunks of smoked swiss he wolfed down while I made and packed our lunch. Here’s the kicker, Jon complained most of the day about having a belly ache!

We hated to leave the cottage . It was so beautiful and serene. It was sad to see it disappear in the rear view window, but hey, at $300.00 per night it wasn’t all that sad!

We had a 7.5 hour ride. Our goal was to reach Mitchell, SD. We encountered a near death experience on the way. With a car on our rear and a car on our right we were boxed in pretty tight! The trailer in front of us was hauling a metal ramp that wasn’t tied down; do you know where this story is going? Jon could see the ramp starting to slice to the back of the trailer is it hit several bumps. When the ramp hit the asphalt Jon’s quick thinking and superior driving skills along with my screaming out erratic directions saved us!

CORN PALACE!! You’ve got to be kidding me! The only reason she got me to this place is because for months I thought she was calling it the Porn Palace. Doooooh!

For years we’ve heard of this place (Jon has heard of this place, not me) . We knew it would be a tourist trap, and it was, but it was still cool to see. When we arrived there were workmen still putting corn on the façade creating this year’s theme. There were rumors that there would be no decoration on the front of the Corn Palace this year. Last year’s corn crop was poor. With great anticipation, we drove through town not knowing if would see the Corn Palace or the Cornless Palace. To our relief there was corn on the palace!

The Corn Palace has first decorated in 1892 and has been decorated since. Lewis and Clark both claimed that South Dakota was not suitable for agriculture. It was only good for grazing bison. Approximately 90 years later, the residents of SD wanted to prove them wrong by showcasing their bountiful harvest, thus the Corn Palace.

Each summer the corn mural is replaced. The scenes are drawn onto black roofing paper and are marked as to which of the eleven colors of corn are to go where. It’s like a huge corn-by-number project! Each of about 275,000 ears of corn are sawed in half lengthwise and nailed to the building. It takes about three months to redecorate each year.