Wrapping up Our Summer Vacation

So let me finish up with our vacation :). We spent another fun day visiting a quartzite quarry and then a cheesy ghost town. First, the quarry. We took a bus down deep into the quarry, where they were preparing to dynamite that afternoon. The quarry is full of Sioux quartzite, which is what Sioux Falls is built on, so it's plentiful and it's cheap. It’s so cheap there you can get it for around $10 a ton. An hour away, you might pay $20 a ton, and more the farther away you go, but locally this beautiful pink rock is incredibly cheap, so it is used in many building projects, which leaves you with pink buildings, sidewalks, and roads. Some are overtly pink, others simply tinged with pink. But everywhere you look, you see shades of pink.

After we went down into the quarry, we toured the place where all that rock is ground up into smaller and smaller sizes, from 6 inch rocks to 4 inch rocks, to 2-inch rocks and gravel. (They even make pink sand there.) The quarry also does a lot of recycling. We saw huge piles of used concrete and asphalt, along with freshly ground mountains of pink, gray, tan, and black stones. Some people on our bus were locals, who had attended an elementary school nearby, and told of how the children would cover their heads when the quarry dynamited, as the building would shake and dust would filter down from the ceiling. A roller skating rink also used to be in the vicinity, and each time after they dynamited, the quarry would have to send workers over to help put the roller skates back on the shelf, as they would roll off from the vibrations.

The ghost town we saw was just that. A ghost town. At one time it was someone’s great passion, and you could see that he put his heart and soul into it, but that was twenty years ago, and my guess is he grew older and couldn’t keep the place up, and his family doesn't share his passion for western history. So what was designed to be a replica of an old ghost town has indeed become one. It’s sad, as the information there was fascinating, but the displays and mannequins had been exposed to the elements way too long, and things were either rusted, rotting, or falling apart. Clothes were shredded on the mannequins, leaving them looking like zombies. In all, it had a creepy Halloween feel to it, and I was glad we were there during broad daylight :).

After the quarry and before the ghost town, though, my son and I took a trolley ride around town, got off at Sioux Falls park, and had a relaxing cup of coffee at an outdoor cafe overlooking Sioux Falls. (if you click on the link, scroll past the three maps to see the photos of the Falls.)

Afterward we went up into the observation tower overlooking the town and the falls, and could have bought our own piece of Sioux quartzite at the gift shop for a dollar, but we passed. Didn't seem right to pay $1 for one rock, when we knew we could get a ton of them for $10 :).

On a different day we attempted to visit the South Dakota Art Museum, on the campus of South Dakota State University, but when we got there, we discovered only one of the seven galleries was open, due to renovations. One gallery didn’t take long to get through, but they did have a nice gift shop, and I did end up buying some art created by local homeless women as Christmas presents for friends. We then wandered down the street to the nearby SDSU Agricultural Heritage Museum, which once again I found fascinating. Not so much the tractors and farm implements, but they'd apparently commissioned a local artist to draw cartoons about what life was like on the farm, which made reading about it much more interesting than reading a simple plaque.

The highlight of the day, however, was visiting the SDSU Dairy Sales Bar, an ice cream shop in the Dairy Micro building of the SDSU campus. There, students made their own ice cream from cows in the Dairy program on campus. It was, I swear, the best ice cream I have ever tasted. (And I have managed to pass up any and all ice cream since, because it made even my die-hard favorite all-natural brand taste like nothing but sugar.)

This ice cream tasted like the ice cream of my youth. I haven’t had a butter pecan that tasted like that in years. They gave us huge servings, and for very little money. I told my son they have all a college student needs to survive here—lots of calories for cheap, and cheap coffee.

After that, we walked through McCrory Gardens (the horticulture part of the campus) to let our ice cream settle. In all, it was another fine day in South Dakota. We were blessed. Because while everyone was frying back home and out on the east coast, we had the best weather you could imagine for our trips and tours.

Until we tried to come home, and storms in Detroit and mechanical difficulties caused us first to be diverted, then delayed, then cancelled and rescheduled by Delta Air Lines, and in all spend 30 hours getting home for a trip that took us only four hours on the way out there. I was NOT planning on sleeping in my clothes in some strange hotel in Minneapolis, no sir, but that is what happened.

But even that was a learning experience, for my son if not for me. I've been stranded before, a few times. Now he'll know what it feels like, and know there's not a whole lot you can do about it when you're at the mercy of an airline. What I want to know, however, is why when they give you a meal voucher, it never covers the cost of even the simplest meal at the airport. Surely they know what things cost in those terminal shops.

But I'll save my sour grapes for another day. In all, we had a wonderful time in South Dakota, and would go back again in a heartbeat. It's a very beautiful and creative place. I left with a whole new appreciation for life on the prairie, then and now.

Fireworks, Underwear, Corn, and Car Hops

Okay, time to talk about the trip. It was wonderful, actually, a nice break from the hustle and bustle of my everyday life. A good chance for my son to get to know his grandparents better as well, spend some time with them in their environment. They live in a retirement community, and the first night we were there, the community had a small fireworks display in the parking lot. I’m not sure that was such a good idea, but they’d done it before and I hadn’t seen any fireworks yet this year, so off we went to join the line up of lawn chairs outside the main building. The fireworks were the kind that come in a can, and were pretty and not too loud, but it was windy out and two of them turned over, shooting fireworks into the crowd. Whoops! A little extra bang for your buck.

Fortunately, no one was hurt, but they might want to re-think that activity in the future. Afterward, as we walked back to the house on the street that circles the main building, I felt like I was walking amid in the Indy 500 of seated scooters. There must have been seven of them sedately rolling down the road, everyone talking and laughing in friendly camaraderie after our narrow escape from renegade fireworks up on the hill.

Our first sightseeing adventure was to the Old Courthouse Museum in Sioux Falls, where they have exhibits that change every so often. (For a link to previous exhibits that might be of interest, go here.) This trip they had one on medical instruments of the past, corn and its many uses, underwear through the ages, hot air balloons in the area, man’s best friend, Indian beadwork, and a particularly fun exhibit on Sioux Falls area drive in restaurants.

That one was my favorite, and inspired several ideas for the inspirational romantic suspense I am currently pulling together in my head. They had a booth with a table jukebox music selector, and you could play all the tunes you wanted from that era. There was a full size soda fountain counter, and every now and then, some machine puffed the smell of chocolate sundaes into the air. It’s too bad those burger joints with car hops on roller skates went the way of the dinosaur. I love to learn about people and their lives, and reading the memory book of people who worked and hung out there gave me all kinds of ideas for stories.

I also enjoyed learning all about underwear through the ages—and the beginnings of the various underwear companies in business today. Warner’s, Hanes, Bali, Maidenform, Joe Boxer, Fruit of the Loom, Jockey, and Victoria’s Secret. Some of the exhibits from the 70s and 80s I remember wearing, myself. Whoda thunk my unmentionables back then could some day end up in an historical exhibit?

I liked the one about corn, South Dakota’s largest cash crop, next. Never knew corn was in so many things, or that corn could be used for so much. Planting and harvesting techniques sure have changed over the years. In some cases, I’m not sure it’s for the better. Modern agribusiness companies seem to be driven to edge small family farmers right out of the American picture.

Sioux Falls also offers hot air balloon rides, and every evening we would notice a few floating in the sky, a sky with some of the prettiest sunsets to be seen. The flat landscape also provided a unique perspective on storms--one that came our way one evening I could see approaching from miles away. I simply stood there, fascinated, watching evening descend and lightning light up the sky both above and below the clouds--until individual bolts began to snake out of the sky and my son took my by the shoulders and moved me away from the window.

Sigh. It’s nice to be loved :).

Sioux Falls is known for two main service industries, and those are financial companies (you, know, where all those credit card applications in your mail come from), and hospitals. I think there are six in the area. I can’t believe how much of the local landscape has turned into housing developments in the three years since we were there. If you’re going to get sick, Sioux Falls is apparently a good place to do so. One of the first exhibits we went to see was the Sioux Empire Medical Museum, housed at Sanford Hospital. It included displays relating to medical history from the early 1900's through today. Nursing uniforms through the years, medical equipment, and photographs showed the changes in medicine over the years, and retired nurses who actually went through the Sioux Valley Hospital School of Nursing volunteered an abundance of information about each display. Personally, I winced at the display of glass catheters.

But I found the daily lives, life, personal accounts, and diaries of various nursing students who had gone through the program fascinating. Do you see a pattern here? I just love personal accounts of experiencing just about anything. I wish I could pick out one favorite fact to share with you, but there are too many to choose from.

I do know, however, that my next heroine will probably be a museum curator, and I’ll find a way to share my facts in her story.

In the meantime, have a blessed weekend.

The National Music Museum, A National Treasure Indeed

It’s hard to believe that three weeks ago today was our first full day in South Dakota. It seems so long ago. Last week was a blur of constant motion, getting back into the swing of things, unpacking and doing laundry and grocery shopping and catching up on emails and blogs and friends here locally. Now I have to think back to all we saw and did…

I usually do a day-by-day accounting of my trips, but today I just want to write about the National Music Museum in Vermillion, SD, on the campus of the University of South Dakota.

We visited two college campuses while on the trip, which reminded me that I love the whole college campus atmosphere. The buildings, the houses, the green lawns and sidewalks and sculptures and flowers and benches and overall look and feel of the place. They took me right back to the memories of my own.

They also reminded me that my son will be going off to school in the next few years, and for the first time, I was actually comfortable with the idea. I can picture him living in that kind of setting and atmosphere, and I think with his love of learning, he will thrive.

My son, in fact, was the reason we went to the National Music Museum. For our itinerary, I chose only places I thought would interest him, because I don’t care…I’ll go to museums of any kind.

We arrived just before noon and had a picnic of peanut butter sandwiches, assorted fruits and vegetables, and grandma’s home made chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies in the shade under a tree just outside the building before going inside. The building itself is not overly large or imposing, not like the national museums in Washington DC, just your basic stone museum-type building--so I didn’t expect much from the inside. Figured we’d be through it in an hour or two, ho hum, been there, done that.

Three hours later I still hadn’t seen everything, but was dead on my feet and hungry, in need of both a place to sit and something to boost my blood sugar.

That is one place I am going back to, first chance I get. And one place I would love to endow, should I be blessed enough to become anyone’s benefactor.

Call me cloistered, but they had the most amazing setup I have come across in a museum. They had nine galleries, full of instruments spanning five centuries from the Renaissance to Rock and Roll. Stradivarius violins, mandolins, and cellos, harpsichords, lutes, lyres, Civil War and slave instruments, banjos, fiddles, brass instruments, wind and reed instruments, guitars, organs of every shape and size, player pianos, a Nickelodeon.

They had instruments that were invented, but never took off, or fell into disuse when something better came along, and instruments owned by famous people or used in movies. There was a room of non-western music, with instruments and drums from places like India, Thailand, Korea, Japan, Africa, Iraq, the Pacific islands, and so forth. That room alone took ages to get through…

Why? Because in most galleries I’ve been in, you look at the object on display, read the accompanying plaque, and move on. But here, upon paying the $7 admission fee, ($3 for students) each of us was given an iPhone type device with headphones. It had a pointer, but your finger worked just as well. You tapped on what gallery you were in, and a screen opened with pictures of the numbered exhibits. You tapped on the picture of, say, a harpsichord, and a voice told you the story of that harpsichord.

Your next option was to tap on the word music, which allowed you to hear what the instrument sounded like. A full song. So walking between exhibits, you could listen to music. And you could play it over and over again, as many times as you liked.

Each person in there was on their own personal tour, at some different point in the tour or room, listening to what interested them. It was quiet, peaceful and totally full of music. (They even have virtual tours. Check it out!) If you need to research anything musical, this is one place you want to contact.

Like I said, three hours later I still hadn’t listened to everything. The one thing I would recommend—but where would they find the space?—are benches like you find in art galleries in ALL the galleries, so that visitors can sit and rest their feet as they listen to all the different instruments. Walking for three hours is hard enough—standing for that length of time when you’re not used to it gets wearing. We had to leave the museum long before any of us were finished experiencing all the exhibits.

And where did we go? To a restored drug store soda fountain a few miles down the road, where each of us ordered something different, made the old-fashioned way. I had a chocolate ice cream soda, my son a cream soda float, grandma a miniature banana split, and grandpa a sundae. A nice way to cap off an afternoon of pure musical enjoyment.