SharivilleLife stories from Shari

And the thunder rolled, and the lightening flashed and the rain came down.  That’s what woke me up this morning.  It was such a stay in day ,that I actually fixed bacon and eggs, hash browns and toast.  Thanks to Kathy, I have a bacon iron to crisp up the bacon.

Drove into Spirit Lake for supplies, got a thermometer, chicken soup and cold meds.  Jerry is trying to get sick on me.  He so far has a sore throat, hope nothing worse. I just think he’s a bit run down with all that’s been going on. He needs a few days to recoup.  He extended us here until the 7th, then it should take us 2 days to get to to St Louis, we never get in a hurry. Unless the snow starts to fly, then watch him abandon ship and head out.

We may have a few down days here, but stay tuned for further developments.  If anything exciting goes on I will be back on line.

Hugs to all,      S and J

This  morning we drove into beautiful Spirit Lake to meet another one of Jerry’s cousins.  She must be a cousin about 3 removed, Rita Bruckshus is her name.  We met her at her work place, she’s Vice President of a local bank.  I’m impressed.  What a nice person, she is researching the Greenfield family tree and she really had some good information to give us.  She even had a CD with lots of old pictures on it.  Some very interesting stuff.

Later we met Jerry’s other 3 cousins and took them to lunch at the only place to eat in the little town of Ocheyedan,” The Bar.”  It works like this, in the morning they post the days meal on the white board outside the front door, this is the one and only meal of the day, take it or leave it.  Today it was Goulash, a hamburger macaroni casserole with lettuce salad and garlic bread.  Actually it was very good and they definitely serve plenty of food.  What can you expect for 6 bucks.

Back to the cemetery found another family member, still no Grandma.  Went to the courthouse in Sibley to find out where the old Greenfield house is located.  It’s still standing and in use , looks like a hippie house , painted brite blue with different colored sheets hanging in the many windows.  I took pictures.  The courthouse is something very special, built in 1902, a wonderful example of turn of the century architecture.  Beautiful inside and out , not really ornate but tastefully splendid.

Since we had to pass right by Ocheyedan again and since it was taco nite at The Bar, we naturally stopped to partake.  On Thurs nite its hot wing nite.  Very good. Then we took some back roads to the RV park and took in some more of the country.  We are lucky enough to be here during harvest time so there’s lots going on with all the harvesters, etc.  They are trying to get in the Soy Beans before the next rain, don’t think they will be totally successful, and they still have thousands of acres of field corn to get done. Still no truck, but the parts came in, we were thinking of extending a couple more days anyway, it’s really special here.  Besides I think we are brewing a big storm.  More later.         Hugs.            S and J.

We left the RV park and went into the town of Mitchell SD, to see the Corn Palace,  What an interesting place. I took some terrific pictures of this place because you would have to see it to appreciate it.  Every year they redecorate the entire outside.  Its kind of a paint by numbers thing.  An artist designs the murals and they various colored corn and grains are nailed and stapled into place to form the colored mural. Each year they remove all the old grasses and grains. Over the summer 3000 bushels of Milo , rye, oat heads and sour dock are tied int bundles and attached.  They have to wait until late summer for the corn crop to be ready, we got here at the right time they say over half a million ears of corn in half lengthwise and nail them in place. Really an interesting place , such civic pride and over $100,000 every year to do this.  It was worth seeing as I will likely never see anything like it again.

We drove on into Minnesota for 60 miles and them cut down into Iowa.  Its a pretty state so far, very green, around all the corn fields.  We are staying at a beautiful resort called Cuttys Okoboji Lake Resort.  It’s near Spirit lake and about 20 miles from where Jerry was born. Theres lots of lovely old farm houses and even more wonderful old barns.  More later,  Hugs  S and J.

Well today was a down day after all, so we decided to skip the train.  I’m surprised as Jerry loooves trains.  I think he’s ready to move on to new territory, so we will head east tomorrow.  Next stop of any consequence will be Spirit Lake, Iowa, for 3 days. That’s where Jerry was born and although he doesn’t know anyone there anymore, we will visit the cemetery.  Really that should be interesting. We still will have one more night on the road before we get out of S Dakota, but there are a couple of interesting sounding places just off the freeway to stop and see while still in  SD.

So, today we did the mundane things like laundry, drove into town to buy a weight scale, Jerry is thinking he’s been eating too often at Ruby Tuesdays. We did that today too.  I’m thinking, why don’t we just cook in the trailer?

I forgot to mention that on the way to Wind Cave yesterday, we kind of as usual got off on the wrong road, yes, we really are still talking to each other, anyway we saw more animals than if we were really looking for them, buffalo, white tail and mule deer and found another Prairie Dog Town. Such beauty here, will we ever find another more fulfilling and spirit reviving place?  More later.  Hugs Shari and Jerry