One more touristy stop before getting to Minnesota…  Mitchell, South Dakota, is home to the world’s only Corn Palace.  This unique American folk art icon was built in 1892 as a way for the early settlers to display their agricultural bounty to prove the fertility of the soil and to attract immigrant farmers to settle here.  They hold a festival every fall.  Unfortunately we missed the festival, but we saw the palace.

The Corn Palace

Each year a new decorating theme is chosen and the outside is stripped and redecorated with new corn and grains.  Inside, the hallways are lined with pictures of the palace from every years since it began.

Corn Palace

This is a multi-use facility, hosting basketball games, stage shows, trade shows, and more.  The inside is also decorated with murals made of corn and grains.

The Corn Palace

Soon after leaving Mitchell we crossed the South Dakota/Minnesota border and we’re home!

One of the first icons to greet us here was the Jolly Green Giant in Blue Earth.  Green Giant brand peas and corn are canned here in BE.  This 55.5 foot tall giant is their symbol.  You see him on cans of Green Giant vegetables.

The Jolly Green Giant

It’s great to be back in our home state of Minnesota again.  Even though we no longer have a house here Minnesota is still our home.  We will spend the next few weeks here visiting family and taking care of business before we head to the East Coast to see our kids before we go south for the winter.  It will probably be the middle of October before we leave Minnesota. 

Unless we do something really cool in Minnesota I will not be blogging until we leave. Stay tuned.