Road Trip to South Dakota - The Rest of the Story

Corn, clouds, and cousins; food, fun and family;

Cows "breaking wind" under whirring turbines;
Cows immortalized in the museum;
Silos new, silos blue and silos crumbling;
Country time and city time;
Slow food and fast food;
Reubens and steins and the Reub & Stein;
An old-fashioned ice cream cone and an Old Fashioned;
Rare old books in a climate-controlled library;
Raw manure and flies on the farmyard of my youth;
A visit to my old church, schools, and main streets;
The new Zesto--

My brother's grave--roses added!

All this and more were a part of our Labor Day Weekend Midwest Road Trip - 2011. Who would go back again to South Dakota, where almost every relative I once knew is now dead and buried in the cemetery west of town? Probably not my daughter Marissa and her husband, my traveling companions for the extended weekend.

It was indeed a study in contrasts, including the reality check of facing  my (pre-18-year-old) past. The wind turbines spinning in the fields of corn became to me the iconic image of the trip--a symbol of the intrusion of modernity into the farmland of my youth.

View of  a wind turbine through car windshield

The first evening we dined on a quick Taco Bell dinner and by dark were enjoying a fast-paced ride on the Chicago Skyway, through the brightly lit city and continuing on to Elgin. Since I don't do Taco Bell well, I later enjoyed a fat burger and a Miller Lite at the Bennigans in the Holiday Inn, where we spent the first night.

I first employed the Fuji at breakfast, day one:

I don't often have tomatoes for breakfast but I was trying to start the day with healthy options. I hope I shared the toasted muffin.

The next shot was of our first sign of country--a cow advertising a Wisconsin cheese shop.

Marissa tweaks a teat 

Our plan was to picnic on the Mississippi River crossing in La Crosse, WI. We had not packed the large cooler of goodies which was our tradition on the family trips of twenty-plus years ago. So we struggled a little finding lunch, driving miles before we found a (very nice) food market at the exit before the crossing.

It was a blazing hot noon-day, and the rest stop was older, deserted, and not quite as scenic as I had remembered. The fresh deli sandwiches we chose, however, were delicious. Marissa and I finished with a custard-style yogurt, which was one of the traditional treats.

Picnic on the river

The second evening we spent in Northfield, MN. The son-in-law had spent a summer session on the campus of St. Olaf as a teenager--of all things studying Danish and Kierkagaard! The librarian there remembered him and invited him to view the collection of very old and original volumes which are housed in a restricted, climate-controlled section of the Hong Kierkagaard Library. 
http://www.stolaf.edu/collections/kierkegaard/about/collection.html

The son-in-law suggested some old familiar places for refreshment:

The three beers

We first walked to The Contented Cow for beer and chips. After a half-hour wait for a bowl of chips we were already getting hungry for more. Since we all love Reubens and beer, what could be better than the Reub 'N' Stein? As it turns out, almost anything! It was the worst food experience of the entire trip. 

There were no interesting beers on tap, it was the first day for the waitress, the Reubens came warmed but not grilled and arrived at our table with a garnish of packet of Hellmann's. How tacky was that?

Marissa added Grey Poupon to her can du jour soup and my drink came in a grungy old plastic glass.

If you are a fussy foodie, I guess you don't go to an establishment called Grundy's. We survived to tell about it and had some wonderful food in Minneapolis on the weekend!

The city of Northfield did have a delightful small town feel, in good ways and some bad. For instance, as soon as we checked in to our hotel I spotted a curious plastic bag on the bedside table--a package of ear plugs! It should have been a clue for what was to come, but I thought it was just the latest amenity, like free coffee or a mint on the pillow. I didn't realize until the middle of the night why the earplugs were thus strategically placed. A full-throated train whistle jolted us out of our slumber. Marissa recalled multiple interruptions during the night. In the morning we opened our draperies to see a train coming down the track right outside our window. Who knew? Who would stay there, knowing?

Sign by the library

The city had its charms and we enjoyed our time at the St. Olaf campus. I had been there briefly before, once when I participated in a combined choir concert with the famous St. Olaf choir and once to drop off my brother for a summer course before he went to college, but I remembered little of those visits.

In addition to the library visit, we enjoyed coffee, browsed  the bookstore and took the time for some campus photos, including this old hall with a good name:

We decided to leave Northfield a little earlier than planned. As we fueled the car the smells from the Malt-O-Meal factory wafted our way.

Marissa snapped this photo through the car window

The first photo of the factory was terrible. Usually I would delete such a photo but I thought I would include it here just to show you what it really looked like and that I am not always so prudent with my digital camera:

View of skyline from MIA

With a few extra hours before check-in at the downtown Hilton, we decided to visit the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts. (www.artsmia.org) We were pleased to discover that the museum had an optional donation bin rather than an entrance fee.

It is a wonderful museum. We spent quite a bit of time in the Asian section and I was amazed at the quality of the exhibits, especially all the ancient pottery, still perfect. We marveled at how pretentious some of the descriptions of the art were, and wrote down a few of the words we didn't know to look up later!

Cow weathervane

Thinking about the possibility of featuring a COW post in this South Dakota Roots Road Trip, I snapped some cow art in the museum. It turns out my fascination with the new turbines trumped most of my bovine blogging--(and there were no cows on my old farm!--maybe they were out grazing in the pastureland by the Sioux river, but we were not allowed to take the gravel roads).

And a bear. I  first thought it was a Malt-O-Meal bear.

A cereal bear

In the museum D'Amico & Sons manages the mezzanine restaurant where we enjoyed a fine lunch, overlooking a Dale Chihuly "Sunburst" sculpture.

Chihuly "Sunburst"

Dale Chihuly's work appears in exhibitions and museums all over the states--take a look if you are unfamiliar with his colorful and imaginative glass sculptures:
http://www.chihuly.com/museums.aspx  Last year I photographed some of his work at Meijer Gardens: (A Rose in the Garden)

Later we checked into the Hilton (rejecting the first smoke-filled! room) and soon changed for our dinner with my niece who is a new doctor in residency in the area. There was a small glitch--Marissa had packed no long pants for the husband. After a small tirade of frustration we realized there was a Gap very near and found some nice pants, on sale.

Cousin/niece G had made reservations at W.A. Frost in St. Paul  (http://www.wafrost.com/) where we had a leisurely dinner with a bottle of Australian Cab. The son-in-law was determined to be adventurous, changing his mind from the barramundi to the featured duck. Since it was still summer and partly a "country roots" trip I chose chicken, layered on fresh creamed corn and swiss chard, topped with a tomato marmalade--an entree featuring local produce. The niece had pasta and Marissa had the salmon. There was a roasted red pepper/tomato soup that was to die for. We all shared a dessert sampler plate which included creme brulee, made with eggs and cream, two more farm products of deliciousness which I learned to enjoy as a country girl. The W.A. Frost building was old and a bit rustic, especially the lower level women's restroom, where I noticed the lovely fixture below. The rest of the time I tried to behave myself and kept the Fuji in my purse.

The next day we found Hell's Kitchen http://www.hellskitcheninc.com nearby and enjoyed breakfast. I had to try the sausage bread, reminding me that we were nearing the prairies "where the buffalo roam and the skies are not cloudy all day." We had such a good experience that we returned on Sunday morning before heading out of the city, through fields of corn and farms of wind turbines, to South Dakota.

Delicious toasted sausage bread with flavors of coffee, currants, cinnamon, toasted walnuts and homemade BISON SAUSAGE, served with BUTTER

Marissa enjoyed the Heuvos Rancheros-available with  Bottled Hell

Marissa chooses a "Sidecar"

The "kids" final indulgence was to go out for cocktails on Saturday night. We took a taxi but could have walked. I should have just stayed home and watched Fox News at the Hilton but I tagged along. I was grudgingly allowed to photograph my drink:

Pimm's Cup

Marissa had done her homework and was excited to try a place near our hotel that could prepare a good classic cocktail.
 (http://www.bradstreetcraftshouse.com/mixology.asp) She was animatedly conversing with the obliging bartender on a slow night. Bored and tired, I was persuaded to have a second drink, which came with a large ball of ice that displaced most of the volume in the cocktail glass. This giant ice cube requires an expensive machine to make--another photo (I took ten):

Hemingway Daquiri

French Meadow Bakery & Cafe

We met my brother and wife and another neice (cousin) at the French Meadow Bakery & Cafe for lunch on Saturday. I don't know if anyone else was annoyed by the chimes that were quite active on the wall during our conversation. I recall that my brother explained the workings of a "blue silo" to the son-in-law, something I had failed to accomplish previously. I made sure he got up close to a silo on my father's former farm. Two silos remain, the oldest gone.

I made him touch the A.O. Smith Harvestore silo. Note the new Gap pants!

Besides a brief visit to my old farm, we drove past my grade school, high school, church and cemetery before heading back through Brookings and Sioux Falls. We stopped at cousin Dan's gas station and met his new son, Daryl. Cousin Doug was there as well. Three more cousins!

My Dad's two silos

Old Zesto of my youth

The new Zesto

I shared a taste of my black raspberry/marshmallow sundae

Brookings Campanile, now closed

We also stopped in Indiana on the return trip for an "old-fashioned" Dairy Queen ice cream cone. The son-in-law had never had one and I let him taste the "curl on top."

Well, that's about it...

The last photo of the last evening--one final view of the Minnesota turbines as we head into Wisconsin to sleep before returning to Michigan on Labor Day Monday.