The owners have been busy finishing the new basement space. They painted the floor and are taping the walls and ceiling in preparation to painting. It will provide excellent clean, dry storage space.

Rapid City is know as the ‘City of Presidents’ . This is because they have life sized bronze statues of each of our Presidents on downtown corners. It is fun to walk around and view this artwork. I’m shown here with Ronald Reagan. The statues were all created with private funds.

Of course, no trip to South Dakota is complete without a stop at Mount Rushmore. We had absolutely perfect weather to see this magnificant carving, as well as the Crazy Horse carving. Both of these boggle the mind as how to accomplish such enormous carving jobs. The interpretive centers at both locations are very good, giving a fine feeling for what a job it is to accomplish this work. The walk down the avenue of state flags leading to Mt. Rushmore is a beautiful walk. The Crazy Horse Memorial has the face completed and much of the extended arm, but many, many more tons of rock still need to be removed.

On the way home we stopped for a picnic lunch at a rest stop at Chamberlain where we crossed the Missouri River. This is a wide, powerful river. The rest stop had an interperative center that told stories of the Lewis and Clark expedition into this area. And of course, we had to stop at the corn palace in Mitchell to see the current version of the corn palace. It is really remarkable artwork to see the pictures that they make with varieties of corn.

Lots to see and do in South Dakota!

From Pierre we continued west on highway 14 through central South Dakota. Highway 14 is not a freeway road (I like to take ‘blue highways’ when we travel) but it, like every South Dakota road we traveled on, was in excellent condition. I’m not sure if the good roads is related to having less than a million people in the state, or is reflective of an adequate transportation budget, but South Dakota has to be commended for the quality of their roads. We arrived in Deadwood for the night. Deadwood is a town that almost became a ghost town in the 1970′s. It is off the highways and in the Black Hills, jammed in between hills as narrow as 300 yards in some places. Infrastructure and buildings were decaying and the town was dying. City leaders came up with a plan to ask the legislature to approve limited gambling, with a big share of the stake going to the city to rebuilt itself. The legislature approved that in 1989 and it paid off hugely. Millions and millions of dollars have been generated to fund all types of repairs. And the city is busy with tourism now, generating strong economic dollars. We checked into the historic Bullock Hotel right on main street and enjoyed our visit. Deadwood had several fires in the late 1800′s and as a result, all downtown buildings were required to be rebuilt of brick or stone. The town is filled with historical buildings. There is a 1930′s gas station that reflects the Art Deco style. It has been turned into a restaurant—Mustand Sally’s— with good food and atmosphere.  This is the town where Wild Bill Hickok was gunned down in the #10 Saloon, marking a piece of Western history.

I’ll post more later.

 Once again we had a fun time in the city. This time we were able to visit the Minnesota Baseball Museum and Hall of Fame. It is located on the second floor of the civic center and has some wonderful displays. As you might imagine, there are special cases highlighting our Minnesota boys that made it to the big leagues….including Paul Molitor, Dave Winfield, Kent Herbek, Terry Steinbach to name a few.

It is really fun to see all the history of ‘town baseball’ in Minnesota. There is good information on just about every team that has played in Minnesota. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing a 1953 picture of the Cannon Falls baseball team that includes a Arnie Nelson in the lower left corner. Arnie played baseball in the area for several years and then taught school at Northfield High School for nearly 20 years. He is a former Northfield Mayor and city councilor. Arnie helped start Northfield Construction Company in 1972 and went on to build many homes and buildings in the Northfield area.  Ellen and I also found Bill Nelson, who is in the Hall of Fame. Bill coached the Dundas Dukes for a long time and is a baseball institution in this area.

If you are in St. Cloud I would highly recommend stopping by the civic center to see the Minnesota Baseball Museum and Hall of Fame.

Our work involves removal of the existing stairs to the lower level and construction of a new stairway. The old stair was a straight run to the lower level. The new stair will have two runs, with a landing at mid-point. The new stair will be much easier to travel on, with adequate sized stair treads.

After the fishing trip I was dropped off at my lake cottage where my family joined me. Ellen and I had our three children, spouses and friends, and our two grandchildren with us….a full house. Again, we had perfect weather and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

In 2005 we finished construction of a new residential living unit…or cottage….for Laura Baker Services. The building was designed by local architects Professional Design Group. It provides an excellent living arrangement for Laura Baker residents. The building has a cement plaster exterior finish on the upper portions of the exterior walls and brick on the lower portion of the walls. Yesterday we officially named the building Wright Cottage after a long time Laura Baker Services supporter.

We then moved on to Baker Cottage. We completed a full remodeling of Baker Cottage last year for Laura Baker Services. ( I posted information on this work on this website as we worked on the project.) Baker was constructed in the early 1980′s and is a solid building, just as is the partner builidng Elwell Cottage. But progams and needs change, and surfaces and fixtures need updating. So we did a thorough remodeling of both these buildings….from removing the concrete floors and installing new plumbing, to completely new air conditioning and electrical systems…and everything in between. Baker looks wonderful and is perfoming to expectations for the residents that occupy the building. We had a few speeches from involved parties as well as a song from the Laura Baker residents. The architect, Jim Braucher, and I held a big yellow ribbon at the ceremony for Laura Baker residents to cut with a giant pair of shears!

Finally, Executive Director Sandi Gerdes announced Laura Baker Serices captial fund raising campaign. Called “Inspiring Possibilities…Realizing Dreams” its goal is to raise funds to complete two more new cottage units of approximately 3,600 square feet each. These two new units will replace the 7,200 square foot Graves Hall that has come to the end of its useful life.

My recommendation, which the owners accepted, was to cut up the concrete floor around the interior perimeter of the basement and install draintile. When we install the draintile we drill holes into each of the masonry block cores and install a small section of drainage hose from the block core to the draintile. The draintile terminates in a sump basket. In this instance we are installing a standard electric sump pump as well as a battery back-up pump….just to make sure that everything works and stays dry.

The first order is of course demolition. That is always a dusty and dirty operation and that holds true in this building. We are removing all of the interior finishes and non-load bearing walls on the main level. Before we could start on the project some asbestos containing material was removed from the ceilings. Once that was cleaned up we were given an ‘all clear’ and we started our work. Stay tuned for progress reports.