Uffda Days in Rutland, ND.

Sun, Oct. 3rd - Sat, Oct. 9th

Not every little town has a world record. Rutland, ND. is about 3 blocks by 3 blocks. With my baby brother and his family, we took Mom here to "Uffda Days" for her birthday. It is a five hour event (11:00 AM to 4:00 PM) the first Sunday in October.

They have kiddie train rides, museums, arts & crafts, old car show, and a parade. There is also lots of good food. We had Uffda (not Indian) Tacos and bought lots of lefse to take home. They fried over 5,000 pieces of lefse to sell.

We also tried the rommegrot, but I don't recommend it. It's a sort of hot pudding that looks and tastes like hot pancake batter. They drizzle hot butter over it and sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on it. I guess I'm not a very good Norwegian!

The parade had horses, old cars, trucks and tractors and lots of other good stuff......

including the Woobie Kazoobie Uffda Band! I wonder if they have any CDs out.

We stopped in Bismarck to visit my Dad's cousin and her husband and had a guided tour of the city and points of interest on Monday.

Traveling in western North Dakota on our way to Montana, this sculpture along the interstate marks the beginnning of The Enchanted Highway. South about twenty miles, there are many sculptures to see, but we have to go some other time, when we are not on a schedule. We skipped Medora and the Badlands, as we have been there in the past.

A view near Townsend, Mt. about 30 miles south of Helena. We will get to Helena in time to help our grandson with his paper route and babysit tomorrow night.

Celebrating our granddaughter's 2nd birthday with Carousel rides and ice cream.

Lions & tigers & bears. Oh my! Oh no, wait, it's a dinosaur!

I think the fish was her favorite. She should fit in well with the fishermen in my family.

What flavor did you get Grandpa? Mmmmm!

Our grandson doing warm-up drills before the game. He is #1 on the far right with his Dad, the assistant coach, next to him. Carter made an awesome touch down in the game, which they won 25 to 20.

This is how our granddaughter likes to watch the game, trying to keep Mom distracted from watching the game.

Grandpa is busy helping with the remodeling of the basement bathroom, when we are not playing with the grand kids. We will be staying here till the 21st.

On a side note, we were discussing funerals with Mom and she said she wanted to be cremated and we should mix her ashes with Dad's and bury them together. So my little brother asked if she still had one of those things with the crank on the side (egg beater), so we could use it to mix the ashes?????

Grandma Tarra signing off.

Brookings & Sioux Falls

Sunday Sept. 5th - Monday Sept. 27th

Landmark on our drive thru Pochahontas, Iowa after visiting relatives. Spent a couple days in Sioux Falls with our daughter.




Biking Beauties before the Cycle to Stop the Cycle ride (for the Domestic Abuse Shelter) in Brookings on Saturday, Sept. 11th. I have hardly ridden at all this past year, but managed to ride 40 miles in about 4 hours. It was fun to see my old biking buddies again.

It was the grand opening for the new Children's Museum in Brookings while we were there. It is the old Central Elementary School remodeled with a $500,000 donation from Dale Larson of Larson Manufacturing (doors & windows).

A close-up of the dinosaur on the north side. It moves and roars.

Our peaceful campsite at Rich's place west of Brookings.

A view of the train in the background between Volga and Brookings, as we were out for our daily walk.

View of the soybean plant in Volga, also as we were walking down the country road. Thanks Rich and Kathy for all the veggies and salsa and the campsite. The salsa was delicious!

Back in Sioux Falls, house sitting for our daughter.
The bike path in Sioux Falls goes over the spillway on this bridge.

This is the bike path switch backs above the spillway.

After the switchbacks we rode along the diversion channel behind the State Penitentiary.

This is by the dam where the Big Sioux is diverted around the city to prevent flooding. From here we rode south along the west side of the airport, along a couple of golf courses and behind the zoo, where we saw two leopards, two zebras and some bison.

This was just behind the Olive Garden on the west side. Needless to say, the trail was kind of messy here.

This is by Tuthill Park heading back toward Cliff Avenue and home. We rode about 20 miles, but didn't do the downtown area, as there is a lot of construction going on there.

The annual South Dakota Festival of Books was going on the last weekend in September. So we went to several author talks and an excellent live performance of "Huckleberry Finn" at the Orpheum done for S.D. Public Radio. The picture is from one of the author talks we went to. The authors were Bruce Junek and Tass Thacker. They have been traveling the world on their bikes for 34 years. Their talk and photos were on the Mayan Ruins and South America and it was excellent. I read their book, A Road of Dreams, a few years ago. It was about their two year bike trip around the world and I liked it very much. They are planning a bike trip thru China next year.


This is taken from the Observation Deck at Falls Park about five days after recent flooding in Brookings and nearby areas. The water was really roaring thru.

We walked down to the park several times. It is a little over a mile from our daughter's house and such a beautiful place to walk around.

You can see the clock tower on the old courthouse behind the railroad bridge.

This was a lovely Sunday evening and lots of people were strolling around and crawling around down on the rocks next to the water.

Here you can see the cathedral in the distance.

Here is a picture of the Observation Tower taken from the south end of the park.

Another shot of the cathedral and the railroad bridge.

The bike path bridge and the Overlook Cafe.

Taken from the south end of the park with some boys sitting down along the edge of the water.

Near the south entrance to the park along the new walking/biking path from downtown. The downtown sculpture walk continues thru the park with several more sculptures.

Taken from 6th Street on the far south end where the falls is just getting started.

The Old Courthouse Museum is free and pretty cool. The courthouse originally opened in 1890 at a cost of $135,000. The clock tower is 165' tall. It closed in 1962 when the new courthouse opened.

My favorite was the underwear room. It had all kinds of men's and women's undies and the history of changing fashions and the reasons and purposes for said fashions. Some interesting tidbits.

There was a group of young school children taking a tour and their teacher wouldn't allow them to go in this room. John liked the room that was all about hot air balloons and, of course, the corn room. What Iowa farm boy wouldn't like that! There was also a room with Indian beadwork, one about all the past drive-ins in Sioux Falls and one about hunting, trapping and pets.

In 1938 Mayo Kellogg (18 months old) fell in a 5' deep water tank near Sinai. The family collie, Nipper, dove in and grabbed the baby and stood on the narrow edge of the tank barking incessantly while holding the child's head above the water with his front paws until his grandma heard and came.

He was hit and killed by a truck a few months later. They saved the pelt as a lasting memory of their heroic collie and it is now in the museum.

Even the water closets are cool. You pull the chain from the top to flush them.

Probably no more blogs till end of October. We will be heading thru Montana to spend some time with our kids and grandkids and then to Portland, Oregon to see John's aunt and then south to warmer climates.

Over and Out.

Tarra

Des Moines & Greenfield, Iowa

Sat, Aug. 22nd - Sun, Aug. 29th


Burning the proceeds of a recent storm in our daughter's backyard in Sioux Falls.




Visiting friends in Fairmont, Mn. "City of Lakes". What a pretty town! There are five lakes in town, four of which are connected, so you can boat from one to the other. We had supper at the Channel Inn, which has been mentioned on the food channel on TV.

Saying goodbye and leaving with gifts of tomatoes, cucumbers and more books to keep us entertained for a while. Thanks so much for all the hospitality Mark and Sue, and for supper.

We visited the state capitol in Des Moines on Wednesday. It was completed in 1886 and is the sixth capitol in Iowa, the third since becoming a state and the second to be built in Des Moines. It is the only capitol with five domes.

The central dome is 275 feet above the ground and gilded with 23-karat gold leaf. There are 29 types of marble, 13 types of wood and 1,475 interior steps for a total of 330,000 square feet. The gold leaf is so thin that 250,000 sheets of it is only one inch thick. It was re-gilded about ten years ago.

It took two years to complete and cost $482,000. Inside there is a model of the battleshipUSS Iowa that is 18' 7" long and weighs 1,350 pounds. There is also a display case of dolls representing all the governors wives in their inaugural gowns.




Now that's a library! This used to be the state library, but they ran out of room. So now it is just the Law Library. On election night, CBS broadcasts from here.

We took a guided tour and went up these 132 steps for a view out over the city and the interior of the courthouse below. Whew, what a hike! And the air conditioning didn't get in here either.

This picture is taken from below amd we are next to the windows just below the gold area surrounding the blue sky.

Here is a close-up. You can see John standing by the railing just below the windows.

Another view looking down from above.

Leaving the capitol heading west, we walked about a block to the State Historical Building which was free and very interesting. We had lunch across the street to the south at the Noodle Zoo, which was also very good, but unfortunately not free.

Heading east behind the capitol is the Veteran's Memorial.

This reflection of the capitol building was across the street to the northwest. Kind of cool.

Just a few blocks west of downtown is a very nice sculpture park.

This one was my favorite.
Crouching anonymous figure with a "skin" composed of letters from the Latin alphabet. Individual letters or symbols have no meaning on their own, but blossom into words, thoughts and language when combined with others. A metaphor for human culture in which a person alone has little potential, but when formed into groups or societies, becomes stronger.

Terrace Hill is the Governor's Mansion. It was built by B.F. Allen just after the Civil War at a cost of $250,000. A few years later during the recession of the 1870s, he sold it to F.M. Hubbell for $55,000 to pay off his creditors. It was in the Hubbell family over 70 years and they donated it to the state to use as the Governor's Mansion. The last four governor's families have lived here in a third floor apartment with three bedrooms and five bathrooms. They use the rest of the house for formal functions and entertaining. All of the wood in the house is from Iowa, except for the grand stairway banister, which is Brazilian rosewood. The house is over 140 years old and the banister is the only wood that has been refinished. The hallway and stairway carpets were recently replaced at a cost of $60,000.

These are the gardens behind the mansion.
There was also a carriage house which is now the visitor center and gift shop.

This is the Salisbury House and Gardens. The couple who built it wanted it to look like an old, authentic English Manor. So they used old bricks that were being scrapped when downtown Des Moines redid their streets, roof tiles that were also being scrapped from somewhere and flint rock that was used for ballast in empty ships and then scrapped. They had a boxcar full of the flint rock shipped from the coast. Their only cost for these items was the shipping. They intended not spending over $150,000, but ended up spending $3 million. It is 28,000 square feet with 17 bedrooms and 16 bathrooms and two carriage houses with 7 garage stalls and a basement under one of them to store other machinery including an airplane. They also have 3,000 first edition books in the library. It was built from 1923 to 1928. Then the stock market crashed in 1929 and they couldn't afford to live there anymore. So they donated it to Drake University with the stipulation they could live there until they died. In 1954 she got sick and went to the hospital and he moved into an apartment. At that time the Iowa State Teacher's Association bought it and used it for offices for about 20 years. Now the Historical Society has it and has put most of it back to it's original state. A very interesting tour.

Back at B.L.'s in Greenfield. Seems like everywhere we go John can find something to help out with. He is especially good at leaning on the shovel.

We are heading back to Brookings Labor Day.

Probably no more blogs for about three weeks. I'm on vacation.

Tarra