Corn-u-copia

On the way from Sioux Falls to the Badlands, we kept passing signs for the Corn Palace in Mitchell.  At first we were like "nah," and then we were like "maybe we could cornsider this," and then we were like "WE NEED TO SEE THIS!"  Before I embarked on this trip, I asked my dear friend Tina, who grew up in part in SD, what stops I should make while here, and not once did she mention the Corn Palace, which I find shocking.   The Corn Palace...I'm sorry...the World's Only Corn Palace was originally built in 1892.  Early settlers were displaying their agricultural bounty on this gorgeous...er, palace, and each fall a festival was planned in celebration.  A new art theme is chosen for this folk art masterpiece each ear, I mean year, and this year it was um...Jesus?  We couldn't tell.  So unfortunately, Lizzie and I couldn't figure out what the point of the corn palace was, other than to get people into the sad little gift shops lining the street.  They had no unifying theme, and the corncession stand wasn't even open.  It had a few pictures of corn, but not many corn fun facts, which was disappointing. I guess Mitchell's prom is held here.  Damn that's sad.

 After the corn palace, we stopped by a prehistoric Indian village, which is an active archaeological dig.  We watched a boring video with a guy with weird Roman Centurion Helmet Hair, and had an even more boring tour, but learned a little about  the ancestors of the present-day Mandan people, which was interesting.  But not as interesting as a corn palace.