At the Wall

We left Sioux Falls this morning around 9:30 am.  We had a pretty straight, and I mean STRAIGHT, drive across South Dakota.  I don't think there was a curve until just before Wall, where we're staying.  Yep, the name of the town is Wall, with a population less than 1,000.  It's named for the rock here in the Badlands.  I expect we'll be checking out that wall tomorrow.

We crossed the Missouri River in our travels.



At about our half way point today, we crossed into the Mountain time zone, near Pierre, the capital (they pronounce it Peer, as we heard on the radio).  Such an awful Anglicization.



They were doing road work in a few spots we drove through today, tearing up the existing road, and redoing the whole thing (it was concrete).  There was a line of these piles of "pit run" (or whatever it's called) for the road work.  I can't imagine how many truck loads of this stuff were sitting here.  It must have gone on for at least a mile.

We finally arrived in the Badlands, which is our destination.  Here's one formation near the highway.  We'll see more of this tomorrow, though.

The other major attraction in Wall is "Wall Drug".  The story is interesting.  You can read about it on the internet, if you want.  From its humble beginnings, it has become quite the conglomerate.

The T-Rex is hungry every 15 minutes and makes some gyrations.

These dudes were playing cards, and one pulled a gun!

And this is what the fame for Wall Drug is all about.  Free ice water.

So tomorrow we will explore the Badlands in this area.  We'll be spending a couple of nights here in Wall.

Another town name I thought was different:  Winner

Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Here's a photo of our bikes on the back of the RV.  Fine job.  And no, the front wheel is not dragging on the ground.  It's just the angle of the photo.  It worked perfectly!

We left our RV park in Lincoln, Nebraska, this morning around 9:15 am.  We headed back east a bit to Omaha and then north on I-29 all the way to Sioux Falls.  We actually went back to Iowa.  The highway runs right along the state line with Nebraska and then cuts into a finger of South Dakota sticking down.  This part of the highway is known as the Lewis and Clarke Trail (Grade 7 history, I think, not that I remember much about it).

I didn't know the Egyptians were here way back when!  Nice obelisk.  We didn't stop to check out the dedication.



Here we are arriving in South Dakota, home of Mount Rushmore, of course.  That's way over on the west side of the state.  We won't be going there as we've already seen that, but we will be close as we travel through.



We arrived at our RV site just east of Sioux Falls around 1:30 pm.  We were all set up in about 15 minutes and had some lunch.  Then we headed into the city to Falls Park.  I didn't expect much of a falls because we had seen the Sioux River, and it sure didn't look like much.  So expectations were not high.

We were pleasantly surprised.  What a terrific falls display, with the red rock, and the tiers.  We walked around quite a bit of the park to see the falls from different angles.  There were so many layers.


We even saw a fool kayaking over the one section of falls further up.  He didn't do the big one though.  I said to Gerard, he's crazy for doing that, but he would be absolutely mad to do the big one.  I believe we saw lots of big boulders at the bottom of the big falls.












Here's Gerard - happy to be here.



This is the first sculpture in Falls Park, of the bison, which no longer roam this area.



Lots of neat sculptures around the park showing award winners from various years.  I don't think Rodin was here.  This guy isn't 'thinking', but rather watching the falls.  Same with the guy on the left.

There is a tower in the park you can climb and get a view of the whole area.  We did that, and that's the city in the background.  Not big, but there are a couple of nice church towers.



We hung out at Falls Park for an hour or so, then went back to our RV to contemplate dinner.  Tomorrow we are westward bound.

Interesting town name we saw:  What Cheer, Iowa (sorry the pic is a little far, but I'm sure you get the picture - haha).

We're in Lincoln

We left Peru, Illinois, at 7:45 this morning after a hearty breakfast.  It was a pleasant day for driving.  We just cruised along through the rest of Illinois.  We arrived at the Mississippi River, then we were in Iowa.

Iowa...driving along through this state reminded me of that song...one of those "Fly Over States".  It's by Jason Aldean.  I rather like it.  You might want to check to out.

We arrived in Lincoln, Nebraska, which is about an hour from the Iowa/Nebraska state line, and our RV just before 3 pm today.  I don't know what the Arbor Day thing is in Nebraska...must look that up.

Our RV is safe and sound!

Gerard changed the battery on the RV (the old one was dead).  We hooked up, and away we went with it!  We are staying in Lincoln tonight at the same place we stayed when we were here 6 weeks ago.

When we arrived, we unhooked again and went off to get some food at the grocery store.  When we came back, I made burnt pizza in the oven.  Yum.

Gerard put together the new bike rack we bought for the back of the RV.  He got it on the RV within about half an hour, then spent the next 2 hours trying to figure out how to get the bikes on it.  But he was successful!  Perseverance paid off.  

We're quite the pair.

Oh, and did I tell you I forgot my camera at home?  Yep.  We're going to beautiful areas in the mountains, and to the ocean, and I left my (bleeping) camera at home.  At least we have our phones :(

Tomorrow we set off on the first leg of our journey with the RV.

We're in Peru...

Illinois, that is.  We made it here around 6:15 pm Central time.  It was somewhat longer than it should have been as we hit the southern Chicago area at rush hour.  It's not really the south part of Chicago as it's further south than that, but you can bet the traffic was related to Chicago.  That wasn't in the plan.  Oh well, we got through it after a long day of driving.  We started around 8:30 this morning, but also had a few stops.

We arrived in Indiana and stopped in the welcome center (there's that 'er' thing again).



We didn't stop in any of the other welcome centers for Michigan nor Illinois.  Some other time.

We went to "Cabin Fever", a local pub behind the hotel, the last time we were here.  We liked it well enough, so we went there again for dinner.  It was within walking distance, which was the best part.

It's a sports bar.  I liked this sign.  Sue, you would appreciate this.  (Kind of a Cubs thing I have...even have the hat.)  Of course, since we're in Illinois, it's either the Cubs or the White Sox.  The Sox were on the TVs as the Cubs are playing later.

So tomorrow we pick up our trailer in Nebraska.  Hope all is well and it didn't get sucked up into a tornado, or something.