Welcome to South Dakota

Feels like we're on the movie set for "Dances with Wolves" (click photo below for buffalo hunt scene). Jacob, this is for you...

Rolling green hills and wavy grass as far as the eye can see.

Starting to notice rock formations in the fields...

...and in the distance.

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Plenty of highway entertainment.

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Fun stop in Mitchell, SD to visit the World's Only Corn Palace, adorned with actual corn cobs, husks, grasses, moss, and dirt. Built in 1892 to mark the 400th anniversary of Columbus's arrival (why should Chicago have all the fun). Mark celebrates with a breakfast of freshly popped corn (he's got the shakes from not having movie corn for this long).

Here's one of the artists (they refer to them as artists) shaping a buffalo from moss.

They grow 12 different varieties of corn, all in separate cornfields, in order to make the different shades of designs (see them at the bottom).

Notice the design on the left commemorating SD native George McGovern. Hometown: Mitchell SD!! Uh oh...there has to be a museum here somewhere...

WELL Looky-Looky!!

George and Eleanor, on the campus of Dakota Wesleyan University, where he served as a History professor for most of his career and she was his closest advisor and a tireless campaigner (unusual for women back then).

Meet Kelly, who happened to be in the school library when we arrived, and who very kindly let us in, even though the building was COVID closed. Here is the office where McGovern worked for decades, inviting in students and faculty for coffee and conversation daily.

And of course the museum was COVID closed too. Well, not unless you knew Kelly.

Plenty of artifacts from the '72 campaign...

Mark called him the Bernie of his day (Molly, he had a good, progressive heart).

He had the right musicians behind him (Egg, he would have had your vote!).

And dedicated much of his life as a senator, presidential candidate, and advocate for the powerless, to better the lives of the poor in America and around the world. He focused squarely on the issue of food scarcity; those raised in farming communities often have a unique sense of their role in remedying world hunger. The museum dedicates much to this. (Lizzie, he so got it).

Food for Peace...

...A Lifelong Crusade

Some final wisdom: