Travel log: South Dakota

We had to improvise for a group shot.

On the road, yet again, and this time the team headed north to Mitchell, South Dakota to put on another Sorghum U meeting. This is the fifth one since January, and it is also the last one for the season. We had been on this highway to hell before, but this year we tried again.

 

History did not completely repeat itself.  

We left on Wednesday morning at 7:30 to make the trek north. We did have a blizzard watch pop up before we arrived in Mitchell. The alert came as we were heading into Nebraska. We did drive through a few pop up snow showers, and one ice pellet storm but the temperature hovered around 40 degrees and we didn’t worry about accumulation. We just drove, and drove, and drove some more. We went through two states in about eight hours, and tacked on another hour and a half to get into Mitchell. We arrived a little after 5 p.m., got checked into the hotel and then were off to grab some dinner with the group of speakers that were helping us out for this event. 

We dined at the depot, with the view of trains. We also had the privilege of seeing a train crawl by. The tracks were right next to the dining room, so it felt like we could have reached out and touched the train as it went by. I checked the weather no less than three times hoping it would magically get better. One of our farmer guests acted like snowpocolypse was upon us again. He continued to go on and on about how we pick bad dates, and how the snow would keep attendance down. His optimism was so appreciated by the group. 

I crawled into bed that night and checked the weather another three or four times before falling asleep. I woke up at 4 a.m. to see the watch was now an advisory and we were looking at a start time of 1 p.m. I could handle that. That wouldn’t be the end of the world. If we had to adjust our program, we would. I went back to sleep for another hour or so, and then started the day with checking the weather again. It was raining out, but no snow yet.

Mitchell Corn Palace.

At this point I can’t control it, so I just went with it. Seventy-six people showed up. I was pleasantly surprised, as was Mr. Optimimstic Farmer. It continued to rain until about 10 a.m. and let up. I was still crossing my fingers, but the advisory wasn’t going anywhere. We did lose a few people after the noon meal due to weather reports from other areas, but it just wouldn’t snow in Mitchell. 

I wasn’t complaining.

At 3:30 we got through the meeting, still no snow and I’m just happy to have gotten through the day. We didn’t have snow, but it was cold. We decided to take a little time and see the sights while we were there, so we checked out the Mitchell Corn Palace and a Prehistoric Indian Village.

I got a popcorn ball. An orange popcorn ball.

We ate dinner at a fancy place, and headed back to the hotel. Now comes the long trip back south and next week, Jacksonville, Florida.