Wet Paint and Corny . . . everything!!

Decided to stay an extra day in Minneapolis and get new tires on the trailer - one of them had a little bulge and we decided we didn't dare take it any further.  I mean, not that a bulge here and there isn't an acceptable thing!  

Doug ventured out onto a back road to paint and seriously, when he got back and I saw the cornfield, I got a little choked up.  This whole trip has been about corn.  Cornfield after cornfield.  Doug and I met in Iowa, as many of you know, and so I'm a little sentimental when it comes to the cornfields.  AND it's something I've never seen him paint.  Directly.  I remember taking pictures and I would think "I can't see the barns and cool silos for all these cornfields.  How brilliant to paint the cornfield and hide the barn and silo behind.  I just loved it.  So, if you're interested in this cornfield, I'd love to hear from you and you can help us pay for those damn tires!  hahaha

"Corn Field"
8 x 10

Waiting to get the tires on, we decided to venture down to the Mall of all Malls . . . the dreaded Mall of America!  Holy Malls of all malls!!  4.2 million square feet and we had 20,000 parking stalls to choose from!  It has an aquarium, an indoor amusement park, a monster lego display and well over 500 stores to meander through!

A cool "panoramic" shot on my iphone with Doug starting on one side and ending on the other - smarty pants!!

This place was huge.  Doug described it as a giant game of "mouse trap" for those of you old timers who remember that board game!  All the rides intertwined and we almost felt like that, at any moment, we were going to have the "cage" drop down over us!!  

A 7-foot Lego "girl" I tried to bring home to my boys but they said it would take a little while to put one together! 

The stores were so unique - one was just based on PEPPERS!!  Doug was in HOT heaven!!  They had a display in the front of their store with tortilla chips and "ketchup" bottles filled with every kind of pepper sauce you could imagine.  I thought he was going to ask for a straw and a 32-oz mug to go!  

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we find out from neighboring trailers that Max chooses to "howl" the whole time we are gone.  "We are so sorry!  We hope it wasn't too annoying," Doug apologized.  They said "well, it was annoying for a while but we got used to it!"  Bahaha!  Apology sort've accepted!  Maximillion!!  I love you a hundred . . . for now!  He's gotten so used to being able to go everywhere with us that leaving him to veg in the trailer with his chewy ball wasn't quite enough.  It's so hard because there are just times you can't take the dog with you!  So yes, we had to resort to a Bark collar.  We tried it out by putting it on him . . . leaving in the truck . . . driving around the campground and coming back and sneaking up on the trailer without him seeing.  Voila!!  It worked.  

So with new tires on the trailer, we are feeling like we could probably go another 2000 miles . . . but . . . we are pretty homesick!  I miss my kids bad!  So next stop, somewhere about 400 miles west . . . hmmmm let's see . . . how about finger lands on Mitchell, SD here!  

So I start researching Mitchell SD a little and, well, you wanna know what is the main attraction in Mitchell, SD?  I'm pretty sure someone asked . . . yeah, The freakin' Corn Palace, that's what!!  I know, huh?  What? THE Corn Palace, you ask?  Yes, the one and only.  I mean, when Stephen Colbert has been here to see it, it better be on YOUR bucket list!  As of yesterday morning, it got added to mine and crossed that baby off all in one day!  Do you ever add things to your to-do list AFTER you've done them just so you can cross it off?  bahaha  

I'm not sure how much corn I can take in on one 3-week adventure.  After the corn painting, seeing the Corn Palace was quite the spiritual experience.  Corn cobs everywhere.  They decorate this palace every year with corn and their "agricultural bounty" to prove to the world the fertility of the soil.  This year, they used 3000 bushels of rye, oat heads and sour dock (that's farmer talk . . . I'm really catching on quickly, so try and keep up) along with approximately 275,000 ears of corn and all made into patterns.  Here's a few pics to get the feel!  

Corn stuff EVERYWHERE!  Kids, hope you're up for a "corny" souvenir from the Midwest cuz baby, I got 'em comin your way!!  But not these, they were a little pricy!  hahaha

And a picture for posterity . . . and we're outta here!  

 So after the 30-40 minutes in the Corn Palace, we headed to the local market for something wonderful to throw on the barbie-Q!  Pork loin wrapped in bacon.  OMG!  Can it get any better?  

Off to see Mt. Rushmore today and probably stay at Devil's Tower at the recommendation of Brandon Cook.  Doug said he had one more board to paint on . . . maybe he'll paint Mt. Rushmore, he said.  I said "hahaha, maybe paint a mustache on one of them!"  Dang, I'm funny first thing in the morning!  

Sorry only one painting to post, and that you had to suffer through this whole corny post with no other paintings to see!  Maybe tomorrow! 

Talk soon!!

J'net