Scenes of South Dakota, Part II

If you read the first post in the series, thanks. If you didn't, that's okay. It's not too late to read the first part, which featured various shots of my time in the Rushmore State. By the way, I feel the title is slightly inaccurate because Mt. Rushmore is six hours away from the folks on the east side of the state and the state tourism board is trying to tell people there's other stuff to do anyway. I think it should be called "The Wave At Everyone Who Drives Past You Whether You Know Them Or Not State because I sure experienced that. I had South Dakota plates on the vehicles I was driving (that's right, company car) and pretty much everyone would wave. While it happens in Minnesota, I'm not from South Dakota, so maybe I noticed it more.

If you don't like the quality of my phone pictures, there's a jar at the end of the post to contribute to the "Marcus could use a better camera" fund.

Open roads (and bugs on the windshield.)

This is the Gregory County Historical Society's Museum in Fairfax. They gave me, a complete stranger, the keys and basically said "Have at it." Needless to say, that's uniquely small town.

I think I tweeted this (and I tweet a lot of photos, so I can't remember) but what happened at the Mitchell Walmart that they ran out of bananas? A band of monkeys broke through town? Actually, that almost did happen in Chamberlain. You remember #MonkeyWatch, right?

In the winter, the Corn Palace holds a lot of basketball. In the summer. the Corn Palace holds a lot of ... crap. My astute Twitter followers noted that all gift shops have crap but I feel like its worse at the Corn Palace because it has a lot of corn and Corn Palace crap. My final verdict on the corn-coated attraction: I liked it aesthetically because the art on the side takes a lot of time and patience but it epitomizes the phrase "tourist trap," something the Convention and Visitors Bureau doesn't exactly shy away from. 

A somewhat overexposed shot but the ballpark in Parkston is what small town baseball is really all about.

Notice the prices at the Birdcage in Sioux Falls for beer or peanuts or anything in between and then think about what you pay at Target Field. Just another reason why the minor/summer leagues are worth checking out

The adorable goal posts on the practice field in Bonesteel. They aren't used in games but I could just imagine the two officials under the uprights with puzzled looks on their face because they have no idea if the ball was inside the post or not.

Grumpy McGee and Cornelius the Corn something-or-other

Herrick's old crappy water tower. With about 100 residents, who knows when they'll get a new one.

At Cadwell Park in Mitchell, the best place for photos is atop the dugouts. So I climbed up there and ended up getting this shot of helmets and bats waiting for use. Also, thank your favorite sports photographers. Great shots are never easy.

One of Mitchell's big water towers

When it comes to road construction in South Dakota, you see more of the temporary stop lights rather than the flag men with the poles reading "STOP" and "SLOW." It this instance, it probably makes more sense (or cents, in this case) to have the lights on high-volume roads. I noticed there's a pair on the east side of Brookings earlier this month, which will make a lot of the Minnesota students heading back to SDSU pretty happy, I'm sure.

I said I would tell the story of how I ended up in the back of Green's Grocery in Burke and here it is. I was gathering photos for our Progress Edition, which is taking old photos, doing some research on them and then taking the same photos from area towns. My guide in Burke, Jack, led me around from small business to small business to find old photos until we ended up at the grocery store, which has been there for a very long time. He strolled right to the back of the store, through the boxes and pallets and into the manager's office. The manager was glad to help and pulled out some photos from a safe. It was a small store, with smaller aisles and organized chaos in the back, which was cool to see for my 10 minutes before Jack led me to the next spot. 

 

I mention my Progress work and I covered the towns from Winner to Fairfax and all of them in between on U.S. Highway 18. Except St. Charles. I made fun of the some of the towns but there's truly nothing in St. Charles.

Mason jars at The Homesteader in Gregory.

The work space at work where I did work while working.

As soon as I knew I would be criss-crossing the south-central counties in South Dakota, I figured I would cross into Nebraska, mainly to say I did this summer, even though I've been there before. (Wayne, Neb., what up?) So I crossed over the border about 500 feet before turning around and getting back on route, which ended up being less than a mile out of the way. Side story: One afternoon, I was able to pick up some Omaha sports radio and they were talking about, of course, Husker football. However, they were not talking about the 2012 Huskers but rather the 2013 Huskers and more specifically their schedule and how it would set them up to potentially win the Big Ten. I don't care if that's the case or not, they couldn't talk about this year's team? And Nebraska fans wonder why people think they are nuts? They must be sick of talking about Taylor Martinez and Bo Pelini.

I'll just give you the basics: A man dressed up as a member of KISS riding on the Wells Fargo and Co. stage coach. You can come up with the rest, as far as I'm concerned. (It was awesome to have this parade right outside my door though.)

I celebrated the morning of my birthday by taking in some late, late baseball at the State Amateur Baseball tournament in Mitchell. This photo in particular was taken sometime between 2 a.m. and 3 p.m., as some fans grew frustrated with the three hour rain delay followed by back-to-back extra inning games. The night finally came to an end at 2:58 a.m., not 3:02 a.m. as one tournament official tried to tell me. You see, my colleague Kevin Pottebaum and I were eagerly waiting for the game to end after 3 a.m. and we both had our phones out to document the time of when the final out was recorded, so when Mr. Tournament Official tried to tell me his time, I wasn't going to have any of it. Take that!

My favorite photo from this summer. It has the best cross of colors and Americana.

Make It Quick: You're Kidding (Ski-U) Meh?

Took me a while to read the Star Tribune today but when I saw the above-the-fold story on the slow sales of Golden Gopher student football tickets they had me. Read the online story and then go back to the seventh paragraph from the bottom and read those three graphs again.

Bob Hughes, president of the University of Minnesota's Goal Line football booster club, said the school has yet to recover from the loss of student support that came from playing nearly three decades at the Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis.

"This whole generation of students now at the University of Minnesota, they didn't grow up with that college [on-campus] football experience," he said. "We lost a lot with the Metrodome."

But Hughes, despite the sagging numbers, is optimistic. "I easily see seven victories this year," he said. "I've never been so excited in my life."

I say: You're kidding me?

The Gophers moved out of the Metrodome because they complained about the lack of an on-campus experience. Now, because the team is bad and you can't sell tickets, now you're saying the Metrodome was better for students.

You cannot be serious. There is no possible way that can be argued. One could have played the beer card a year ago but even that will be served at games now, basically giving fans more than what they had at the Dome, except for the roof and Glen Mason.

As for the inability to sell student tickets, that part is simple: Wins = Butts in seats. That was the formula at the Dome and it will be the formula at TCF. You're not going to convince average college kids to show up at 11 AM to watch the Gophers lose 31-10 every week.

Mr. Booster Club President says he sees seven wins easy this year and while I'm normally optimistic about the Gophers, I think he's cracked based on his already flawed logic seen above. They might get seven wins, but by no means easily.

Take off the maroon-colored glasses Bob.