Dan and the pan

Blog for Friday, May 8, 2015 -

We drove into Rapid City again today and stopped in Box Elder, at Americas Mailbox, for another mail and package pick-up. The majority of the items that we have had mailed to us are soup mixes, other food mixes (mostly from King Arthur Flour) and kitchen items. Here's why.

Last month when we were in Chickasaw National Recreation Area and went to the Chickasaw Cultural Center, we spied some soup mixes on sale, soup mixes that we have not seen available from King Arthur Flour. We bought all the mixes they had (6; three of New York Corner Cafe Minestrone Soup and three New Mexico Mesa Fiesta Soup). About two weeks ago I checked out the Frontier Soups website. Frontier Soups is the maker of the soup mixes we have been ordering from King Arthur Flour which are the foundation of our evening meal. There are ten different soups that we have been rotating through for the past year plus. But when I went to Frontier Soups' own website I found 13 different soup mixes that we wanted to try. A number of them are chili-type mixes and the suggestion on the web-site is that these soups are good served with corn bread. 

I love to bake, but for the past year I have not even lit the oven in the Airstream. When I read about the corn bread, for some reason that got the juices flowing. Also, Frederick suggested that we should at least try to light the oven to make sure that it works before we are out of warranty. The situation is, I don't have any baking paraphernalia. Since we were coming through South Dakota and would be able to stop in person at our mail service and pick up packages, this was the perfect opportunity to stock up the kitchen.

We ordered soups from Frontier and more from King Arthur Flour then came a resulting flood of auxiliary items. It began with some corn bread mixes, which necessitated a pan and escalated from there. Many boxes later, we are now faced with the challenge of storing quite a few new items in the Airstream. Perhaps the coming winter storm will afford us the opportunity to re-organize.

First thing this morning, when we looked out our window, we saw a whole flock of turkeys coming through our campground - about 16. 

Here's the corn bread pan we ordered from KAF. Imagine our chagrin when we tried to get it in our modest-sized over and it didn't fit. Fortunately the pan had a generous flange on both ends and Frederick suggested that we could take it to a sheet metal shop and have the ends reduced. Here's Dan, he works for Hermys Sheet Metal which Frederick found on the web. When we drove to Rapid City we stopped in Blackhawk, SD, a suburb, and Dan - with the right tools - chopped off about an inch on each end. He also smoothed the edges. Nice job, Dan!

We next stopped at the Museum of Geology, located on the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology Campus, and specializing in the Black Hills and The Badlands. These are Oreodont fossils. Oreodonts are one of the most common groups of fossil mammals in the Big Badlands. They resemble pigs (short, four-toed feet) and sheep (tooth structure).

Oreodonts are only found in North America and are not closely related to any living animal. The largest specimen above (left) is unique in that it is the only mounted skeleton of a fossil mammal with unborn young (twin skulls are preserved).

This is a Brontothere, an extinct relative of horses tapirs and rhinoceros.

Edmontosaurus lived in large herds and roamed along the coast of the ancient seaway that stretched from Texas to Canada between 80 and 65 million years ago. It is a "bird-hipped dinosaur" due to the resemblance of their hips to those of modern birds. The way this fossil is mounted is an example of the posture scientists once thought Edmontosaurus would have had - looks kind of ferocious, like a T-Rex.

 

It is now known that they walked on all four limbs with their tail stretched out behind them. Not quite so fearsome looking!

There was a skull of Triceratops horridus, South Dakota's State Fossil. Frederick is there for scale.

There were also many minerals on display. This one reminded us of one we have in our collection.

Meteorites

This display presents models of famous diamonds. The Hope diamond is at the bottom left.

Agates

We haven't visited Mount Rushmore yet, it is adjacent to Custer State Park and only about twenty miles from here - we are waiting for a nice day. Obviously Rushmore's presence in the area has inspired local imitation of a sort. These more that life-sized busts of Kennedy, Reagan and Bush (15 feet high), are along the side of the road and we pass them going and coming to Rapid City.