Palaces and portals

Monday, August 27, 2007

ALBERT LEA, MINNESOTA — As if to make up for the chilly temperatures of the majority of our "summer" holiday in Alaska and the Yukon, Mother Nature is delivering all she’s got in the waning days before Labour Day. Yesterday our truck thermometer read 101 degrees Fahrenheit, or 34 Celsius, and today it hit a high of 92 (32). I was singing the praises of vehicular air conditioning every mile of the way! Those kinds of temperatures make me wilt.
Our odometer was producing some high numbers today too. This is the longest distance we have covered in one day, as the trip counter reported more than 600 kilometers, and we are halfway across the state east of the one we started from this morning. We’ve also moved from the Mountain Time zone to Central Time.
By the scenery, you wouldn’t be able to tell much of a difference between South Dakota and Minnesota. We are traversing the breadbasket of America, where huge fields of grain stretch out to every horizon, and farming homesteads dot the countryside, with their clusters of shady trees, a couple of silos and large red barns set back from the highway, and pickup trucks parked in the laneways.
Beef and dairy cattle graze on wide open fields. We saw one herd taking a dip in a small pond to get some relief from the heat — and we even spotted one small group of buffalo. A steady wind set the cornfields dancing in waves, and the trees bending with a bit more dignity.
As the lunch hour approached, we were passing large billboards announcing the Corn Palace, a local attraction we had heard about from our friends Herb and Hannah in Gillette. "We’re all ears!" boasted the signs, so we decided to forgive the corny joke and turn off the highway for a look in the small town of Mitchell. Before venturing out of the RV parking area nearby, we popped in to the trailer for a bite of lunch.
The Corn Palace is a huge building about the size of a quarter of a city block and two storeys high. On the top corners are onion-shaped domes and there is a central turret, and all have flags waving from them. The front and side walls are decorated entirely in parts of the corn plant! Edgings are done with the stalks, with an inner frame of dried rust-coloured tassels, and huge pictures are set out in different colours of corn cobs — white, and yellow and dark red. One section showed a pair of cowboy boots, while another was a picture of a cowboy dad and his little boy. There were several more of these huge pictures all around the building. Apparently the pictures are changed every year as new cobs replace the old. It was a fascinating display! As we headed back to the parking lot, I noticed that even the lamp standards along the street have cobs of corn embossed on their concrete bases. There is no doubt about the staple of this community’s economy.
The Interstate 90 carried us further east, passing through several sections under construction. This brought the four lanes down to two, but didn’t cause any delay at least. It must have been a hot day for the workers in the blazing sun.
When we crossed into Minnesota the wind seemed to pick up quite a bit. We saw a number of huge wind turbines in the area that told us wind was probably not an unusual phenomenon, but Val could sure feel it pushing at the large side walls of our trailer.
After some distance it was time for a rest stop, and just as we were pulling off the highway we saw something flapping at the back of the trailer on the passenger side. It was the plastic molding around the trailer door! A small curved strip of molding fits into a groove all around the door to cover the screws that hold the frame in place. The relentless wind must have caught a little loose section and gradually unseated the whole strip!
The two of us started pushing the strip back into its little trough, one on either side of the door, all the while being buffeted by the fierce blasts of wind. When we met at the top, there was a large loop of extra length that wouldn’t fit; the heat, and age, had lengthened the strip from its original size. Clearly we would have to do more than just get it all back into its proper place. We dug out the duct tape and our Leatherman scissors and, while I held on to things as best I could in the gale, Val applied sections of tape. Doing the part above the door was the hardest part. Val had to stand on the top step with his belly flattened against the door, reaching up to press the plastic in and tape it down, while I held on behind him, supporting him so he wouldn’t fall backwards! We must have been a funny sight! One kind lady came by to give us some plastic ties, because she thought our awning had come loose!
Val’s taping job was very neatly done, but he still remarked that we must look like the Beverly Hillbillies now.