As all of you know, we had quite an experience this morning, we saw a 747 carrying the Space Shuttle on it’s back take off at Offutt AFB, it was an amazing sight, something we will never forget, unfortunately, we were not fast enough to take a picture of it, so you will have to take our word for it, it was SUPER COOL!

We drove from Omaha NE to Mitchell SD today, and arrived around 2PM, so we had time to go visit a little.

Mitchell is home to the only Corn Palace in the world. It hosts some events like Basketball games, Proms and even local school games. The palace is entirely decorated with corn, grains and grasses grown locally. Designing the murals is actually a prestigious honor. It started with famed American Indian Oscar Howe, who was in charge of designing the panels from 1948 to 1971. Cal Shultz took over in 1977, then local college art teacher Cherie Ramsdell has headed up design since 2003. Crews change the murals each summer, in time for the Corn Palace Festival. The process takes months, Ramsdell designs the murals, then the previous year’s murals are stripped from the building and new templates are tackled on the walls, each showing workers exactly what color grain should go where. Murals are made with corn ears cut in half and nailed to the wall. The mural borders are made of grasses, wild oats, brome grass, blue grass, rye, straw and wheat.

The first Corn Palace was built in 1892.

We then went to visit the Enchanted World Doll Museum. They have and impressive collection of dolls, from the early 1800 until today, precious Brus, Jumeau and German character dolls, many mediums represented, felt, wax, papier mâché and of course, porcelain. Over 4800 dolls presented in cute scenes including miniatures in doll houses. It was a very interesting visit, I recognized a lot of the dolls, they were like old friends, I guess you have to be a dollmaker to understand the feeling, it was great.

The Whistler, German Heuback doll, circa 1910, he whistles when bellows in his stomach are compressed

Wax portrait doll of Mrs Bertha Honore Palmer made in France in the late 1800’s. Mrs Palmer was a well-known socialite in Chicago in the late 1800’s.