The Corn Palace

Yesterday Keith and I decided to hit the road and drive up to Mitchell. I've never seen the Corn Palace so away we went!

It is pretty amazing that they cover the outside of this building with different pictures made of corn each year. The 2010 theme seemed to be transportation through the ages.

If you notice the side pillars, they've already started working on the new designs for 2011.

There was also one panel dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America (which seemed appropriate given how much popcorn those little buggers sell each year!)

The concession (I'm sorry CORN-CESSION) stand amused me to no end so I had to take a picture of the sign!

Yep the stuff they sell is heavily corn based!

We watched a video explaining how the history of the Corn Palace and how they make the designs each year. Basically they draw an outline of the designs and fill them in (kind of a "corn by numbers" as the video said!) with the nine different colors of corn they use.

I found an example of it on the outside of one of the gift shops across the street.

Duck corn by numbers

The completed duck

We also found a cheerful fella to hang out with!