This is a Socrates Cafe post.

I think the answer to that question depends a little on what a goal is. There are many types of goals. An individual may have a short term goal of losing five pounds. That may not be a life altering goal depending on the person. Some of us constantly battle with that five pounds (or a good deal more than five pounds), but it does not really matter much if we actually reach the goal of losing it. For a high fashion model, that five pounds could have a real financial impact, making the goal of losing it much more significant.

Some people set goals that are really unobtainable. I would like to be taller, but at my age, that is not going to happen. Even when I was still growing, it is doubtful that I could have made it happen. I frequently see students set career goals that are not within their abilities. It is important for goals to be realistic.

Goals tend to vary with a person's stage of life. When I was young, I had goals of graduating from college, marrying, and having children. I accomplished those goals. They are no longer on my active "to do" list.

One of my goals is to be really honest with myself. That's been a goal for a really long time. It is not as easy as it sounds. We do not perceive ourselves the way that others perceive us. Of course, neither our own perceptions nor those of others is really totally accurate because they are colored by previous experiences, beliefs and biases. I do try to be honest with myself though. That is important to me.

Another goal is to be financially stable with enough money to pay my bills and do the things that I really want to do. My husband and I have worked hard at that. We shall see how well we succeeded.

A third goal is to be present for my family, giving them help and support and spending quality time with them. I feel good about my relationships with my children and grandchildren.

I am satisfied that I will reach or have reached the important goals in my life. Do most people feel that way? That's a hard question to answer. I think it depends on the person. I think many people get frustrated because they set unrealistic goals. That leads to the attitude that someone or something else is keeping the person from reaching the goals and being successful. I think that most people are more in control of their goals and their lives than they think, but I am not sure that most people are realistic about the goals that they set. What do you think?

You can listen to John Philip Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever while you read this blog if you click on the arrow to turn on the player.

On Saturday, our local Lions Clubs sponsored a bus to St. Paul so that veterans of WWII from our area could attend the dedication of the Minnesota WWII Memorial on the grounds of the Minnesota State Capitol.  Dan and I went along on the bus as representatives of our respective Lions Clubs.  The vets were very excited to be going.

When we arrived, they were still putting the finishing touches on the decorations.  Here are some active duty military personnel placing flags along one of the walkways.

These are the veterans who went in with us on our bus.  They were a spry bunch of men and were eager to get about the business of exploring the area, but they did wait long enough for a group picture.  Each WWII vet attending the ceremony received a medal.  Our vets did not have their medals yet when the picture was taken, which is too bad.  Anyone you see in the rest of the pictures wearing a red, white, and blue ribbon with a medallion is a WWII vet.

Over 4,200 WWII vets from all over the state attended the dedication.  There were lots of reminders of military life to help them reminisce.  Hormel was there handing out free Spam.  That was a pretty popular spot.  If you've never had Spam or have never been convinced that it tastes awful, it's actually pretty good!

The Salvation Army was there with free coffee and donuts, and the Red Cross was there drawing blood.

Here's a pretty troop of USO girls.  They milled around in the crowd.  They performed, too, but I was not near enough at the time to be able to tell what they were doing.

Many vets wore their uniforms.  I was very impressed that they still fit!  Look at all of this sailor's medals!

This vet is one of only a handful of men who survived the sinking of the USS Johnston during WWII.  He carried a sign to let everyone know.  I can't imagine having a ship I was on shot out from under me!

There were veterans from all the wars since World War Two present.  Here's a WWII vet talking to a Desert Storm vet.  Most of the vets wore caps or something else to identify themselves as vets and let people know when they had served.  Some vets thanked men who served during different times for their service.  It was very touching.

Many exhibits represented life in the field during WWII.  They were manned by young men in WWII uniforms, but this WWII vet seems to have found a moment alone in front of this tent to remember.

This is the view towards the memorial from the Capitol steps.  This picture was taken about two hours before the dedication ceremony started and already the area was filling.  By the time for the ceremony, there would be 22,000 people on the Capitol Mall.

Before the dedication ceremony began, there was a fly over of WWII aircraft.  The service itself began with the National Anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance.  This gunner's mate from the USS Wichita was very reverently vowing his loyalty to his country.

The men from all wars whose fates were never determined were remembered.

The invocation was given by a WWII chaplain who jumped with the paratroopers during the war.

Stan Kowalski honored the POW/MIA's.  Stan is better known as Crusher Kowalski the wrestler.  He's a great humanitarian and a very beloved Minnesotan.

One of the female pilots who trained the fighter pilots spoke.  Did you know that women did the training of the pilots during WWII so that the male pilots could be overseas?

Governor Pawlenty spoke last and did the actual dedication.  The ceremony ended with a performance of America the Beautiful.

After the service, there was a cake and punch reception honoring the WWII vets who were present.

Here's a view of some of the narrative panels lining the walkway on each side of the Memorial.  The area was crowded all day with people reading them.

This is the memorial itself with the plaque explaining it.  It's a very unusual looking memorial.  (The memorial is that structure that looks like a ramp.)  The long descending slope represents the despair of the early war years.  There is a rapid, triumphal rise to the plaque which signals the eventual hope and the triumph of the end of the war.  The gun from the USS Ward which fired the first American shot in WWII stands beside the memorial.  Most of the crew of the Ward were from Minnesota.

  A person standing to read the plaque has a lovely view of the State Capitol.  There are memorials to the veterans of WWI, Korea, and Vietnam in the area, but none of them share this direct view of the Capitol.  This spot was given to the veterans of WWII because Minnesota feels that WWII was the pivotal event of its century.

I was very happy to be able to attend the dedication and to share it with the veterans from our community.

It's unrelated, but I would like to share a bit of trivia about our State Capitol.  Did you know that the Minnesota Capitol has the largest unsupported marble dome in the world?  The second largest is in the Taj Mahal.  The dome at St. Peter's in Rome is larger, but it is supported.

Thursday, I had lunch with two of my college friends.  In recent years, we have started getting together every couple of months.  Sometimes it's just lunch, and other times we also shop.  This time, we browsed a very nice antique shop in one of the little towns near where I live.

We have a lot of antiques in our home, and when I shop, I frequently see pieces that I really like, but usually I cannot figure out where I would put them.  Our house is really rather full and the problem is more thinning out what we already have than acquiring new treasures.  On this expedition, though, I found this lovely pie safe.  I have always wanted one and I have always known where I would put it.  I have a wide hallway just off  my kitchen that I have thought would be the perfect place for a pie safe.

I don't know whether or not you can see, but my wallpaper has stripes in it that are exactly the same color as this pie safe.  To me, that meant that I was supposed to have it.  That makes sense, don't you think?  Anyway, I think it looks very nice there.  It's very old, but it's in good shape.  The areas on the sides that look like they are scuffed are not scuffed.  That is the perforated tin that allows ventilation so fresh pies can cool.  I am very happy with my purchase!

Retirement day for Dan came and went. I have to admit that it was a hard day for me. I am not quite sure why. It's something that we have discussed for years and I knew that it was coming. Still, it was difficult.

School districts are not allowed to spend a lot of money on perks for staff, so the retirement celebration was held at lunch in the school cafeteria on the teacher workday at the end of the year. Attendance is voluntary and each teacher or staff member who attends has to pay for his/her own meal. The cafeteria was full, though, with staff and teachers from both campuses in our district as well as many retired teachers. One of the teachers who retired several years ago told Dan that he had not been back in the building since his own retirement but that he had to come to Dan's. Dan was very touched by that.

Lunch was lasagna, garlic bread, salad and cake. After lunch, the program honoring the retirees started. There were six retirees, three teachers and three members of the custodial staff. The teachers were honored first, beginning with a member of the elementary staff, then another junior high teacher, and finally Dan. Each teacher's principal said a few words about the teacher. I wish I could remember what Steve Harter said about Dan. It was really very nice. I do remember that he commented on what a good role model Dan had been for the rest of the staff and how many programs Dan had started to help the students. I cried through the whole thing.

After the principal spoke, the teacher was asked to speak. Dan had his remarks typed out, so I have them and can read them again later. It will be much later, though, because reading them still makes me cry. I do remember that he quoted Andy's scoutmaster who always said "Leave it better than you found it," and said that that was what he had tried to do with his teaching career. I am pretty confident that Dan did leave the school better than he found it.

The retiring custodians were honored after the teachers. The Superintendent spoke about them and then each of them responded. Our good friend Pat was one of the retiring custodians, and our friend Rod was the other junior high teacher who retired. Dan was very pleased to be "going out" with the two of them. It made the act of retiring much more meaningful for him.

I have been trying to figure out just why Dan's retirement is so difficult for me. I have always prided myself on being a person with my own identity and not being just an extension of my husband, but somehow Dan's retirement feels like it changes who I am. I don't know quite why that is.

I do feel like the school district lost something important when Dan left. I know that nobody is really irreplaceable, but he's an exceptional teacher and worked very hard. He also has a lot of experience. He mentored the new faculty and I am sure that they are better teachers because of it. I'm sad to see that end.

I do our budgeting, so I am concerned with those issues. Dan's income will change a little, but not too much. At least that's our hope! We will know better when we see his first pension check. We do have one big financial change, though, and that is that now I will have to pay for my own insurance. The school will pay for Dan's. I can stay in the teacher group, but now I have to pay for it every month. Before retirement, the school paid most of it. Did you know that insurance is expensive???!!! I know that I will get it figured out, but in the meantime, I worry about it.

I know that the fact that I cannot retire is also an issue for me. I did teach thirteen years in the public school system and I still sub there, so I do have money in the pension fund. To retire with full pension, though, you have to qualify for the Rule of 90. That means that your age plus your years of service have to add up to ninety. I have accumulated service time by subbing, but I am only up to about seventeen or eighteen years. That means I would have to be, well, seventy-two to retire! I will continue to accrue years of service, but full retirement is probably not in my future. I can decide to draw my retirement at any time, but because I am not eligible for full retirement, the amount I would get right now is very small. If I wait a few years, it gets much better. For now, it looks like I will be working my four jobs until I can draw Social Security. At that point, I will be able to cut back, but possibly not to retire completely.

In the meantime, three of my jobs are flexible and I can decide to be gone for awhile. My fourth and primary job is online, so with a good laptop, I can travel. We bought that laptop in January, so we are planning some trips and will see how it works out.

I know that the whole retirement thing will work out and that I will soon feel much better. Dan and I enjoy being together. Now we will have much more time to do the things that we enjoy. I just have to get this all worked out in my head.

PS. Go visit Morning2Dancing. His blog today is really beautiful!

This is a Socrates Cafe Post. The title is too long for me to be able to note that in the title.

I could not resist tackling this question! I think that joy is very important. In fact, studies have shown that the quality most associated with longevity is the ability to adjust and to form new relationships. To me, joy would play a role in those abilities. Without joy, we tend to look at what we do not have rather than rejoicing in what we do have. In turn, focusing on what is lacking prevents us from successfully adjusting to our current situation, and few people want to form relationships with a Gloomy Gus.

So, what is joy? I think it is the quality of looking around and seeing how really wonderful the world is. I am not sure that anyone can do that all of the time, although I know people who come close. The more a person practices joy, though, the happier that person will be and the happier the people around him/her will be. Joy is contagious. Really joyful people make everyone around them feel good. They are a pleasure to know and people seek their companionship. They are a gift to the world.

Real joy makes it impossible to hate, to be jealous, to have any of those very negative, damaging emotions. Wouldn't the world be a better place if we all practiced the art of joy? It is an art, you know. Being joyful is something we can decide to be. It takes practice and determination, but I think anyone can learn to be joyful.

How do we learn to be joyful? Sometimes, making a list can be helpful. If we begin each day writing down a specific number of things about which we can be grateful and which bring us joy and not ever allowing the list to be shorter than the required number of items even on a very difficult day, we will begin to focus on those things in which we find joy rather than on the things that are not going well. Positive affirmations are a related skill. Just saying out loud to ourselves frequently "I am happy. I am full of joy" will help us begin to feel more joyful. Learning to say to others "I am so happy about _________ !" or "_________ brings me so much joy!" rather than making our conversation an endless litany of our problems can help. The statements must be sincere, though.

Another technique for becoming more joyful is to smile more often. Wearing a smile is a sure way to begin to feel like smiling. It's a proven fact that our inner emotions will mirror the emotions we display outwardly.

I don't think being joyful means that we ignore problems or fail to acknowledge sadness. In my opinion, that would not be healthy. We need to experience the complete range of human feeling and to share those feelings with the appropriate people. We also need to recognize the trauma in the lives of those around us and be appropriately sympathetic and understanding. A joyful person, though, moves on and adjusts. A joyful person's general focus is positive.

So what is the place of joy and is it important? Joy helps us to live our lives to the fullest and to help others to do the same. I think that's rather important, don't you?

I have always wondered what maturity was. I used to look forward to getting there, but the older I get, the less hope I have of that. Or, maybe that is maturity, the realization that you don't have all the answers and you never will. I don't even have all the questions.

I know that I have become more mature in my career. There are things that I might have done when I was younger that I would never do now because I have been around long enough to have seen what can happen and to understand that something that may seem like a minor corner to cut can have horrifying effects. I think that that is valuable knowledge. I'm not sure that it can be imparted to others, though. I think some things have to be learned by the individual and only come with time and experience (maturity).

I also know that teaching has made me a more mature student when I take a class myself. I understand the frustration that an instructor feels when students only make a halfhearted effort. In my undergraduate years, I rarely gave my all in a class. I now know that a student hurts him/herself when he/she does that because he/she does not receive the full benefit of the class.

In my personal life, the primary sign of maturity that I see is that I have become much better at accepting the right of others to think differently than I do. That's another personality characteristic that it would be nice to be able to teach, but I am afraid that it has to develop on its own. Some people are fortunate to develop it at a young age and some never develop it.

Sometimes I think that some young people think that to be mature is synonymous with being stuffy. I think that the opposite is true. A really mature person can appreciate the differences in lifestyle and culture and enjoy experiencing them vicariously through others. I now admire many characteristics that I used to disdain. I have also come to realize that it is OK for me to be different from other people and that sometimes when the "in group" does not seem interested in me, it is not because they are "cliquish" or "snobs." It's because we have nothing in common and there is no reason for them to be interested in me or me in them. Others don't exclude us. We exclude ourselves.

So, is maturity a good thing? That's a difficult question to answer. I am not sure that there is such a thing as maturity. I think that possibly a better term is personal growth, because each of us grows and changes constantly depending on what we have learned by living. Maturity seems, to me, to be a nebulous concept that varies with the individual. I think the best we can hope is to feel within ourselves that we have matured well.

OK. I am trying my hand at this blogging thing again. You would think because I sit at a computer all day teaching online that I would have lots of blogging time, but it does not seem that way. Nevertheless, I enjoy Xanga, so I am going to give it a whirl again.

Dan is retiring soon, the day after tomorrow, in fact. I can hardly believe that that is happening. We have purchased a pontoon and will put it on a lake near here. We plan to spend many afternoons there. I think our kids will be using it, too, so it will be a pretty busy boat. I will put up some pictures of the launch when it happens.

In July, we are going up to the North Shore again with our kids and their families. That has become an annual tradition, as you can see if you look at my index over there on the right. We go up with friends at times, too. Here is a picture of a little chipmunk who joined us for breakfast when we were up there with our friends the Nelsons last summer. He did eventually climb right up onto Dan's foot, but I do not have a picture of that. We take sunflower seeds (the kind packaged for animals, not the ones seasoned for humans) up there for the chipmunks, which might be why they are so friendly.

Later, I have to go to the last session of Targeted Services for the year. I work in that program after school two afternoons a week. Basically, I am a professional nag. In the program, we work with junior high students who are having problems with their school work. We help them or just make them work. Most of them are pretty intelligent kids, so it amazes me a little that it can be so difficult to get them to work, but it is. Hopefully, we are teaching them some good habits that will help them as they get older. Today we are having a party with sloppy joes, chips, Rice Krispie bars, Hershey's kisses, and board games. Tomorrow is the last day of school, so studying is over for the year.

This evening, I will be chained to this computer because I am playing now. I will not be happy then, but I am having fun now, so I hope that it is worth it. I am finding it hard to work lately. I think that is partially because Dan is retiring and I can't. I enjoy the work that I do, but I really would like to have the luxury of deciding not to do it. I would probably still work, but it would be so nice not to have to work. Oh, well!

Now, I had really better become productive or I will regret it later! 

Can men and women be friends? I think they can. I can remember when my son was single and looking for "Miss Right." He seemed to have definite specifications in mind. He wanted someone athletic. He also tended toward shorter women (he is tall) and dark hair (he is blond). He wasn't having much luck in his search. I can remember telling him that he needed to be looking for a friend, a person he could not imagine not having in his life. I think he took my advice, because I now have a tall, blond, nonathletic daughter-in-law whom I think is a perfect match for him.

I still think that friendship is the best basis for a marriage. My husband and I are very close friends. We have been married for 38 years. I would say that that is an indicator of success. Of course, in a marriage, you also need physical attraction. Some marriages seem to succeed without it, but I think that is rare. To me, a marriage without romantic love would not be a good marriage.

Can men and women just be friends, though, with no romantic attraction? I think that some can. Friendship is an interesting phenomenon. You can't form friendships with just anyone, anymore than you can fall in love with just anyone. There has to be something that draws two people together as friends, whether those two people are of the same sex or of opposite sexes. Often, that something is a common interest or a common belief system. That is not enough to form a friendship, though. Friends' personalities have to mesh. They have to compliment each other in some way so that the friends each find the relationship satisfying. I think it is a little difficult sometimes to identify just what that glue that holds a friendship together is. It's very much intertwined with the way that the members of the friendship relate to each other and to people in general.

Several years ago, I did a correspondence course to earn CEU's to renew my RN license. The course was about the difference in the way men and women relate to other people, particularly in the workplace. The premise of the course was that it is helpful for men and women to understand these differences in order to work together more successfully. Women, it seems, have communication rituals that need to be respected and accepted in order for them to feel comfortable in a relationship, no matter what that relationship is. For example, women need to talk about how the kids are or what they did over the weekend before they can get down to the meat of a business conversation. Men are more direct. When they talk business, they want to stick to the topic. There were many other examples of the differences in male and female communication styles in the text for that course. I am not sure that I bought into all the theories presented, but I did think that there was some validity to most of them.

I think that those differences in male and female communication are key in determining whether or not a particular man and woman can be friends. In order to have a successful friendship, a man and woman would have to have similar communication styles or at least be able to understand and relate to each other's communication styles. There is a theory that all of us have both male and female characteristics and that masculine and feminine are more like points on a continuum than like polar opposites. I think for a man and woman to be friends, they have to have elements of personality that are positioned similarly on that continuum so that they can relate to each other and find the relationship mutually satisfying.

I really do think that the difference in the way that men and women communicate is a factor in determining whether men and women can be friends. I do not think that every man is able to relate successfully to female communication. Likewise, not every woman can relate to male communication patterns. For those who can, though, I think friendship is possible and that it can remain platonic.

I have always had male friends. My son has always had female friends, and my daughter has always had male friends. Those relationships are very rewarding. 

Here it is October, and I am still blogging about how I spent my summer! Considering that I am only covering the pleasant things and not talking about teaching all summer with a course overload, that says something about how busy it was, I think!

In August, our community celebrated its sesquicentennial. That's an awful word, isn't it? Peter Noone appeared at the sesquicentennial in Blue Earth over the summer and I went down there to help with merchandise sales. He had a great time murdering that word before he finally came out with the correct pronunciation to the cheers of the crowd. Peter is quite a linguist, so I am sure that he was playing and that the word is not difficult for him to pronounce, but it was lots of fun to watch him. When he did get it right, he turned to the audience and said, "So, how many times in your life do you ever need that word, anyway? Once!!!!" That got an even bigger roar than murdering the word did!

Anyway, back to my town's sesquicentennial. One of our events was a parade. It was one of the best parades I have seen anywhere in recent years, and a truly remarkable one for a small town. I took over 100 pictures during the parade, so, even though I am only going to post a small number of them, this is going to be a long blog.

People gather for parades early so they can get good seats. In our community, you can take your chairs and set them up where you want to be and go home. Your chairs will be perfectly safe. Still, it's good to get there early so that you can visit with your friends. At this parade, the Community Band played before parade time. Note the girl in the lifeguard shirt. She was going to work when they finished playing.

Here are Andy and Jake waiting for the parade to start.

The VFW and American Legion presented the colors at the start of the parade.

Most of the members of the VFW and American Legion are veterans of World War II and Korea, so they are not young anymore and may have trouble marching in parades. They still want to be involved, though, so they rode in this unit following the flags.

The units in the parade were quite varied. They included clowns like this one:

I was very intrigued with this unit. This is a real calliope. It has been a long time since I saw one of those. I liked the fact that it was blowing bubbles.

A lot of the units represented the time that the town was founded. I liked this covered wagon:

We were on the shady side of the street and it was fairly crowded by the time the parade started. If you look behind these unicyclists, you can see that the sunny side of the street was not as popular. I don't think I could ride a unicycle, do you?

There were many Shriners' units in the parade. I don't know about your community, but the Shriners really do a lot of good in Minnesota. They have a large crippled children's hospital in St. Paul. No child who is a patient there ever receives a bill. The Shriners always look like they are having so much fun in parades. This motorcycle drill team's stunts looked downright dangerous!

At parades in our community, most of the units throw candy to the kids. Here is Jake out there grabbing his share.

Here are some real Native American dancers. I am not really sure why they were there, since we do not really have much Native American history in this town. They were fun to watch, though.

Of course, parades always have to have local dignitaries. These are Fourth Degree Knights of Columbus. The fellow with the beard is our good friend Pat.

Dan even made the parade because he is the president of his Lion's Club. The woman sitting with him is the president of my Lion's Club.

As I said, there were many Shriners' units in the parade. They must have had at least 20 classic cars. This one was a beauty!

Here is a cement truck that is, for some reason, decorated in honor of the Minnesota Gophers. I wondered if anyone ever noticed that the pictures on the truck are upside down?

This is one of my favorite units. My camera did not cooperate when they were actually going by us, so I had to run a block over to catch them. This is our Sheriff's Mounted Posse. They are in almost all parades in our area.

And here is Jake at the end with his haul of goodies. It was better than Halloween!

When we started home, we went through the parade startup area. The Gopher cement truck was still there and Andy could not resist taking this picture of Jake with the Gopher face on the front of the truck. It really is cute, I think.

So, there you have a few highlights of a small town sesquicentennial parade. It was actually a much better parade than Blue Earth's, and that is a much bigger town!

It's my aim to get my site active again. It's been a very tough summer, so it is taking me time. My job has changed, though, and, as of this week, I am no longer driving to campus 3 days a week. I have the same number of classes, plus my other 3 jobs, but my primary job is now sitting here at my computer. I am hoping that not having to spend 2 hours a day driving will mean that I can post here. I will probably never be a daily poster again, but I would like to continue my Xanga journal.

I would like to begin by continuing my account of our summer, even though we are now into fall. We had planned a very busy summer. It was going to be stressful because it was so full, but it was going to be a good stress. Life does not always honor your plans, though, and we were dealt some unexpected cards. We had to move Dan's elderly aunt into an assisted living at the beginning of the summer. Then, over Labor Day weekend, we had to clean out her house and get it ready to sell. That was a monumental job, but not an unpleasant one. I may write about it at some point.

We also had a crisis in the family. Not a family crisis in the sense that something happened to the family itself, but a crisis that affected the family. It's working out now, but it was difficult for all of us and was a focus of our attention for awhile.

All of that is not the subject of this blog, though. It is more the reason why I have not been blogging. I have already written about our trip to the North Shore the last week in June. We turned right around from that and headed for the Black Hills the first weekend in July. Neither Dan nor I had ever been to the Black Hills. We decided that that was rather disgraceful in view of the amount of traveling that we do and the relative proximity of the Black Hills area.

We planned a weekend trip and left after I finished classes on Wednesday afternoon to drive as far as Sioux Falls, SD. We had never been there before, either, so before heading back to the highway on Thursday morning, Dan wanted to go and see if there really were falls at Sioux Falls. We found this:

Isn't it lovely? The park around the falls is just as lovely.

After enjoying the falls, we headed back to the interstate and I began calculating our arrival time to myself. I thought we would have time for a shower and a little relaxation before a nice dinner and a pleasant evening exploring Rapid City. That's not the way we travel, though. When Dan was growing up, his family made a driving trip to California. It was at the height of the polio epidemic, so his family did not go to the ocean because at that time polio was thought to be water borne. On the way home, his dad had a tight schedule planned, and a very incensed Dan was imprisoned in the back seat of the car as it whizzed past a sign marked "Grand Canyon." Because of those experiences, if Dan sees a sign that says "Big Pebble," we pull off and look at it, possibly taking several dozen pictures. I was not surprised, then, when not too long after we had turned onto the interstate, we turned off. I did ask where we were going, and was told that we were going to look at the Corn Palace. That had never been one of my goals in life, but I knew that we were going, anyway.

The Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD, is quite famous. It deserves to be. This is the outside of the building:

The corn palace is an arena. It hosts all the typical things that an arena hosts. That's not what makes it interesting, though. All of those pictures on the front of the building are made out of corn cobs and corn husks. It's amazing! The inside of the building has more interesting corn pictures:

The design of the Corn Palace changes annually. In the lobby, pictures of the previous designs are displayed along with information about the designers. I really do advise a visit if you ever get a chance! Building the Corn Palace was a stroke of genius that put Mitchell, South Dakota, on the map. That was completely intentional. It's a weird idea that worked.

We set out on the interstate again, and, before too long, we saw a sign for a scenic overlook of the Missouri River. I grew up along the Missouri River. I was a great admirer of Mark Twain and his stories of the Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, so I had to go and look at my river. Growing up on one of the great rivers leaves a mark on you and makes you want to return to it whenever you can, so we were once again off the interstate and heading for the cliffs above the river. There was a lovely visitor's center at the overlook. Out in back, there was this giant teepee:

South Dakota is Native American territory, so it was not surprising to see the teepee, but we were surprised to see what was under it:

That's a Catholic priest saying Mass in what we think was probably Vietnamese.

The river was quite a distance below this overlook. The view was gorgeous and I did take pictures, but they are not impressive when they are small enough for a blog. Just know that I enjoyed seeing my river, even if I was a few hundred miles north of where I grew up.

We got back in the car again and headed for Rapid City. We almost got there, too, but then we passed a sign that said "Wall Drug." Having seen those signs all my life, I had to know what the big hoopla was about, so once again we turned off. If you drive through this area, you will probably need to get off and go to Wall Drug, too. You will probably want to take a picture. I did. You will have to see it for yourself, though. Provided that you can find a parking place so that you can get out and take your picture, which can be a challenge because this is a major tourist trap, this stop will take about 5 minutes. If you like human zoos, it will take much longer.

We made one more detour to drive through the Badlands. At least Dan said that we were going to drive through. Of course, we never drive through anything. At our first stop, this sign was interesting or daunting, depending on your point of view:

We spent most of the afternoon at various places in the Badlands. It's very beautiful. It's also very hot, very windy, and very dry. I could see why the pioneers in the area feared it. It's huge and you could certainly die if you were trapped out there. We ran into a family who asked us to take their picture. In return, they took this one of us:

You do have to get off the interstate to see the Badlands, but I highly recommend that you do it.

We did finally arrive in Rapid City, or, rather at our
bed and breakfast which was a few miles out of Rapid City in the Black Hills. Instead of a relaxing pre-dinner shower, we dropped our luggage in our room and headed to a nearby restaurant that had been recommended by the woman who checked us into the B&B. It turned out to be an excellent suggestion and we enjoyed a marvelous dinner and good bottle of wine as we sat beside the fireplace. We were too late to do any exploring, so we returned to our room and settled in.

We packed a lot into the 2 days that we had in the Black Hills. Each morning, I had to go to the public library to work on my online classes because it was the first week of the quarter. Then we headed out to see the sights. I am only going to show you a small part of what we saw.

We went to Deadwood. I was the one who wanted to go there because it is another of those places that I have always heard about. I put it into my Wall Drug category. You probably need to go there if you really want to see it. You can take your own pictures.

One of the main highlights was the day that we went to Mount Rushmore. On the way, we stopped at this manmade lake:

Pretty, isn't it?

I was excited to see Mount Rushmore. Dan was less excited. His brother had been there and told Dan that he was not impressed with it. He said it looked small to him. Both of us were very impressed though. It's an amazing and very peaceful place. As you approach the mountain itself, you pass through an arch formed by all 50 state flags:

There are walkways that provide views of the presidents from different angles. Here are Washington and Lincoln:

And here are Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt:

The National Park Service also provides displays of the equipment used to carve the mountain and information about the man who carved it. I enjoyed my time there and would love to return.

Not everybody feels that way about Mount Rushmore, though. Carving the mountain was a desecration of land that is sacred to Native Americans and there has been friction over it since the project's inception. I think that the tension has eased since a memorial to Chief Crazy Horse has been started. It's my understanding that construction has been underway for many years but that progress is being made much more quickly now. I would like to return and see it.

The day that we visited Mount Rushmore, we also drove through nearby Custer State Park. It's known for its wildlife and we were treated to up close and personal views of buffalo:

That picture was taken from the car. You do not want to get too cozy with a buffalo. They look a little like cows, but they are much bigger and they are not friendly animals. They are also very fast. We saw some running down a hill. They are surprisingly nimble. If one was after you, you would not be able to escape. It was fun to look at them from the car, though.

While we were there, we drove the Needles Highway, also in Custer State Park. It was a somewhat terrifying experience. The road is narrow and very winding. There are narrow tunnels like this one:

That little hole down at the base of the rock formations is the tunnel. It's only 1 lane, so cars have to take turns going through. Because the road is so twisted, you can't see if anyone is coming, so you just have to honk and hope for the best.

Here's Dan standing at the base of one of the "needles" to give you some idea of how big they are. Dan is 6'1".

We returned to Custer State Park on another evening to attend a play here:

That's the Black Hills Playhouse. It's in a magnificent setting. It's also an excellent theater company. We saw A Chorus Line. On the way home, we drove the Needles Highway again, this time in the dark. Dan wanted to go that way because it was a couple of miles shorter than the alternate route and the alternate route was a county road. Take my advice. Take the county road. It took us about an hour and a half of sheer terror to save that 2 miles!

There you have the highlights of our Black Hills trip. I would love to go back. I recommend that you go if you have a chance.

This is awfully long, isn't it? Is anyone still reading?