Day 37: July 22, 2016 Art in Corn & Metal Comment via blog

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I dropped straight south from Pierre and climbed onto I-90. I drove this road back in 2014 and I repeated one stop from that drive today. Some fairly major work was going on at the Corn Palace in 2014 when parts of it were not accessible. All that work has been completed and things are back to normal. Looks like that old joke about "a buck an ear" being expensive corn is done for.

After walking around the Corn Palace, sipping a cold one seemed like a good idea. Inside the Scoreboard Pub & Grill, I looked over the four taps and asked about the one I didn't recognize. It was Alaskan Brewing Company's Amber. That's what I ordered. There was nothing new to try and that was certainly more interesting than any of the others. I track my beer experiences with a smart phone app called Untappd and I fired it up to record a new venue even though this was not a new beer. I was slightly surprised to see the Alaskan beer available outside the state but I was even more surprised when the app opened. Recent friend activity is the first thing displayed and I learned that not only had the beer reached South Dakota, it had reached Loveland, Ohio. A friend there had logged it just a few minutes earlier.

When the image in the first photo appeared, my initial thought was that a very serious Indianapolis Colts fan lived in South Dakota then I pulled past the object and saw that that was not at all the case. It was at about this point that the Roadside America Garmin app alerted me to Porter Sculpture Park. The proper exit was now behind me so I had to drive a few miles to the next one and come back. The recorded coordinates were not on any actual road so the GPS tried to send me back to the expressway. I realized this only after I had accumulated about a hundred yards of entry ramp to back up. But I eventually found my way and had a nice chat with sculptor Wayne Porter before heading down the path to through the multi-acre art exhibit. The sign across the path from the grinning yellow guy talks about me.

I had a tough time picking a half dozen photos to represent the park and if I did it again there's a good chance I'd pick six different ones. The sixty foot bull's head (described here) got a lot of my attention because of its size and it being the first thing I saw. Some sculptures, like the skeleton guards and the monk-less robes, form a sort of supporting cast. Others are essentially unrelated yet the bull is a big part of their world. Porter is working on a horse that will rival the bull in size. He has pictures of the work in progress with a 6' 4" friend standing beneath it. I'd like to come back to see that when it's finished and moved to the park in a couple of years. Almost as soon as I pulled in, the big hand intrigued me. Note that I made it the back drop for the picture of Porter. It's explained perfectly here.

This is Falls Park in Sioux Falls. I would have completely missed it if Wayne Porter hadn't suggested it before I left him. In fact, I obviously did miss it when I passed this way in 2014. The brick walls are from a mill that once operated here. The space they enclose is used for small concerts and other events.

I spent the night in this room at the Cozy Rest Motel in Luverne, Minnesota. As I almost always do, I used TripAdvisor to help me find a motel and the reviews on this one made it sound just right. It was. One of those reviews mentioned learning about the town through Ken Burns' Civil War series and I found that it was featured in an episode of that show. Down the road from the Cozy Rest the Howling Dog was a fine place for dinner.

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