The Mitchell Corn Palace, South Dakota
Back in 1892 the folks of Mitchell South Dakota wanted to tell the world “Hey, South Dakota IS a great place to live! In fact, our soil is so fertile we can decorate our buildings with our surplus corn!” And so the Corn Palace was born. Today, visitors can see the third incarnation of the Palace, stripped down each year and completely redecorated with murals made from several colorful varieties of corn.
Inside, it’s just a high school basketball gym (home of the Kernels) but you can find pictures of all the previous Corn Palace decorations so it’s worth a look inside. And, just in case you’re wondering, the Palace requires 275,000 ears of corn each year, each color planted in a separate field to ensure the color remains true. But don’t worry about waste; the birds and squirrels eat well in Mitchell!
Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble greating the guests at Bedrock City
Right out of the funny papers and into the middle of nowhere South Dakota, Bedrock City is one part Flintstones and two parts 1960’s kitsch. The “theme park” is near Custer, South Dakota and is actually pretty close to a lot of big-ticket attractions like Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse.
But this bizarre little theme park is a fascinating attraction in its own right with fiberglass Fred and Barney statues, “stone” houses and various prehistoric things to do like the Water Buffalo Lodge and a train that circles the whole place. The theme park itself isn’t much to brag about but it’s fascinating to go and see it for what it is: a vintage tourist trap. But, if you have to pull your motor home in someplace to park anyway, you might as well make this the place to stop. Plus, at least at the time of this writing, a one-day pass is the same price as an annual pass!
If South Dakota isn’t your style, there’s another one in Williams Arizona, near the Grand Canyon. Yabba, Dabba, Doo!
Bedrock City, South Dakota
Bedrock City, Arizona
Related reading:
Comments (0) 
Themocracy