We're traveling Highway 20 today and took a brief sidetrip into Aberdeen. Armed with coffee from the Red Rooster, we're ready for another day, but we learned about a unique event there later this month. Red Rooster is hosting the Fallout Art and Music Gathering September 10 and 11.

Siblings Dan and Kileen Cleberg own the Red Rooster, at 202 South Main. It's their 14th anniversary in business, so there are plenty of activities, including the festival. There will be cultural events, live music and lots more; a full schedule can be found here.

Red Rooster features a new local artist each month. September's is Andrea Sgarlatti, who is also a barista at the coffee shop. She will hold a reception there tonight starting at 7 p.m.

This photo by Dave Tunge shows the 4th annual Bash to the Colonies Regatta held this past weekend at Lewis and Clark Lake. You can click on the photo for a larger view. The race moved much more quickly than I remembered in the past due to warm southern winds up to 30 miles an hour. This event founded by Jeff and Judy Wahl has grown into a successful fundraiser for Special Olympics South Dakota.

Update: I just heard from Jeff Wahl with a few of the details about the regatta. The Bash raised over $12,500 for Special Olympics and the money will be matched by an anonymous donor. This more than doubles the amount of money that was raised last year. The top fundraiser was Trace Arndt from Sioux Falls who raised $1750. As for the winner of the race, Jeff says the children of Special Olympics were the true winners.

Our new 2011 calendars celebrating our 25th anniversary arrived last week fresh off the printers!

Be the first to identify where the statue pictured below is located and be the envy of all your friends. You will be the first to own our beautiful calendar featuring classic covers from South Dakota Magazine. It includes paintings by artists such as Terry Redlin, Jim Pollock, Charles Greener and John Green. The calendar also contains historical dates and major festival and event dates throughout the state.

Click on the comments below to enter your guess. You can click on the photo for a larger view. Don't worry if your comment doesn't appear right away - they are timed and dated for total accuracy and fairness.

We'll offer a few hints later if it looks too difficult. Good luck!

Hint #1: Students may pass by this as they head back to school.

If you're like me you're probably still trying to squeeze all you can out of this summer. Luckily there are plenty of activities to take in across the state.

Kool Deadwood Nites kicked off on Wednesday. This annual four-day event features over 600 classic cars with parades, show and shines, a sock hop and free concerts. This weekend features Sha Na Na and The Platters. For more information, visit www.deadwood.org.

Prairie Village Steam Threshing Jamboree starts today in Madison at the Historic Prairie Village. There will be parades, threshing, plowing, tractor and pedal pulls, and a flea market. The event also includes spinning, rug making and quilting demos. For more information, visit www.prairievillage.org.

Here is your chance to fulfill your dreams of recreating the famous grape stomping scene from "I Love Lucy." The Great Dakota Wine Fest starts tomorrow in Vermillion. This event held at Valiant Vineyards features wine tasting from different South Dakota wineries, live music, cooking demonstrations, winery tours, food vendors, door prizes, an amateur wine making competition, and, of course, grape stomping. For more information, visit www.greatdakotawinefest.com.

The Bash to the Colonies Regatta will be held in Yankton this Saturday on Lewis & Clark Lake. This race is an all day event for all types of sailboats ranging from 16' Hobie Cats to 45' sailboats. Not a seasoned sailor? Me either. I will be watching from my camp site. The view from shore is quite impressive. Bring your lunch, binoculars and camera.

These are just a few of the activities available to entertain you this weekend. If you've had enough of the summer hubbub I would recommend the relaxing activity of kicking back with the latest issue of South Dakota Magazine.

By John Andrews

Birders are coming from thousands of miles to see the single Orange-billed Nightingale Thrush that migrated a few hundred miles farther north than normal this summer and settled in Spearfish Canyon. Now it seems another colorful bird may be extending its range north, though not as far.

Dan Ackerman, a North Dakota birder, reported seeing the blue grosbeak while in the field in north-central South Dakota. The bird is known to live in far southern South Dakota, but he reports this is the first occasion he's seen the bird that far north. Read his full report here.

The new bird likely won't draw people from the coasts, but it's no doubt exciting news for South Dakota bird enthusiasts.

With fall in the air and our garden still producing record amounts of zucchini, the South Dakota Magazine staff has had lots of time to meditate on the poor man’s vegetable.

As one of our readers commented earlier, two never-watered zucchini plants will suffice for a family of 15. We have four well-watered plants and I’ve been eating zucchini every day for a month. Most days I grill it on my George Foreman grill, which is a quick and easy. But one day our suscription department manager, Jana Jonas, brought in a heavenly zucchini chocolate cake with white frosting and pink sprinkles and we became enlightened.

We decided to have a zucchini cook-off. The winner would have a recipe that tasted great, and at the same time used up copious amounts of the large green vegetables quickly piling up on our bookshelves and desks. The staff met on Tuesday around our conference table with six dishes to taste. There were two zucchini cakes, one bread, cookies, chili and a quiche. Several co-workers claimed to dislike zucchini, but in the end all six were taste tested and declared delicious. In the end, we decided there were no winners or losers and each of the six recipes will be featured in the July/August 2011 issue. For now, I’ll share the recipe I used. I found it here and in my opinion it was a winner because I used up four cups of raw zucchini – way more than the other recipes in the contest.

I read on Wikipedia that harvesting the flowers from a zucchini plant will help reduce an over-abundant supply. The flowers themselves are an expensive delicacy in some cultures. But I'd consider curbing our zucchini production to be wasteful - especially with so many good recipes to explore.

By John Andrews

When the Living Map Theater in Lead's restored roundhouse was completed, the only thing missing was music to accompany its story of the Black Hills gold rush. So those leading the renovation turned to John Mills, who wrote two songs specifically for the map. "Mountain of Gold" was inspired by the 1876 rumor that a huge stockpile of gold awaited miners in the Hills, and "Change in the Wind" is about Custer's 1874 Expedition.

Those two songs are included on Mills' new CD, Everything's Different. The songs are a mix of blues, country and folk (hence the title), though straight country is still a love for the Brookings musician. Mills serves as the coordinator of the Sioux Falls chapter of Nashville Songwriters Association International, which holds occasional workshops for those interested in songwriting, and his first CD was titled North of Nashville.

Music has been a lifetime love for Mills. He wrote his first song at age 12, and for years he entertained crowds at Custer's Songbird Cafe.

E-mail Mills at musicmills@hotmail.com for information about his CDs.

A historic site in South Dakota is in the running for a $25,000 historic preservation grant. The spectacular Mead Building on the old state hospital grounds in Yankton is among the nominees for the award, which would be used to further community plans to convert it to a museum. Mead is one of a dozen old buildings on the hospital campus, which was formed a century ago by a visionary physician who believed that persons with mental illnesses would benefit from a college campus atmosphere, rather than being warehoused in bleak and plain buildings as had been the practice. Mead is the centerpiece of the campus, which is largely intact today.

You can vote for Mead quite easily by clicking to the web site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. And please spread the word if you can. A hard-working bunch of Yanktonians have truly been scrambling to raise money and attention for this cause. They don't want a wrecking ball to demolish this very significant building.

The competition is a way for the National Trust to create public awareness of the amazing historic treasures in America's cities and rural areas. They call the project This Place Matters.