🌞 Early start this morning. Pulled out of campground at 6:33am. Already 80* & sunny. 6:55am passed by KC Royals Stadium! ⚾️ For those that don’t know, my favorite all time favorite baseball player is Jeff Connie… yup Mr. Marlin himself that I stalked for many years at baseball fields and restaurants! Yes the truth comes out. 🤣🤷🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️😱😇 He made his MLB debut on September 16th (day after my birthday) 1990 as a Kansas City Royal and I have his rookie card!
7:15am we fueled up at a Costco … 85 gallons…$370.92! 😳 Found a McDonald’s but only drive thru open so walked over to a Casey’s (which resembles a small WaWa) for coffee & Diet Coke.
At 9:40 we crossed the Iowa border. Stopped at visitor center to walk around. 🌽 More cornfields! 🌽 Now we’re seeing even more bikers on their way to Sturgis, SD. The largest Motorcycle Rally & music Festival is held every year for 10 days and this years event is Aug. 6-14th. Many ride there, many trailered too. 🏍 🏍
1:09pm Toured the South Dakota visitor center and got a lot of information & suggestions from gentlemen working there! He was genuinely excited for our adventures and kept suggesting other places to go! We walked out with a stack of brochures! 😳 Outside the visitor center a Motorcyclist Christian tent was there for bikers with informational giving them water & snacks!
Temperature is starting to drop. We got to Brandon about 2:15 and it’s 78*. As we approach Big Sioux Recreation area, I put our SD annual State Park pass sticker on the truck we ordered. Lots or corn, wheat and soybean fields around. The houses all had blue spruce trees around them, guessing to catch most of the snow to keep off house. 🤷🏻♀️ I’m a Florida girl. 😝 Nice spacious sites, we got all set up and unhitched the truck! We took an hour nap and when we got ready to go …it was cold out! Seriously 😒 it was 69*!!! Brrrr, time to find the jeans & long sleeve shirts.
On our way to Sioux Falls we passed Smithfield plant….oh the aroma of bacon! Largest hog producer & pork processor in the world. The company traces its history back to 1936 in Smithfield, Virginia where the main headquarters are. Vertical integration allows Smithfield to control every stage of pig production, from conception and birth, to slaughter, processing and packing, a system known as “from squeal to meal” or “from birth to bacon”.
We arrived at Sioux Falls Park. Beautiful big park, hanging flowers all around visitor center. Went up the tower to take in the area from above then walked the trails all around the falls. Sioux Falls is named for the Sioux Tribe of American Indians & the waterfalls of the Big Sioux River right outside of the downtown district. It is the most populated city in South Dakota with 202,600 this year. The history of Sioux Falls revolves around the cascades of the Big Sioux River which the falls were created about 14,000 years ago during the last ice age. 🪨 It was truly an amazing area in the middle of a park!
Off to checkout the downtown are! 👫🏻 As we walked these beautiful streets with hanging flower baskets & art sculptures every where you looked, we popped into Blarney Stone Pub, the area’s only Authentic Irish Pub! The atmosphere was fun and the drinks & food was amazing! With a little buzz now we walked around the town then called it a night. 💤 414 miles for the day.
Sunday, about 1:07am it started raining and didn’t stop till about 8:30am! We started getting weather advisories of flooding around the area we visited last night! 🤦🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️So it was a relaxing morning catching up on the blog & downloading pictures. 68*, overcast with a slight breeze. It’s definitely a jeans day for sure! 😂 Made an early lunch and off to be a tourist but our first stop was… guessed it…the Golden Arches! 🥤😃 We crossed into Minnesota and went to Pipestone National Monument. Out in the middle of nowhere passing towns like Ihlen population of 63, Jasper 633, and our final destination Pipestone 4317. The whole town was closed up like a ghost town because it was a Sunday! ☹️ So to the Minnesota we go. We talked with the rangers about the area, monarch butterflies (which migrate there), I got my Junior Ranger Badge, visited all the exhibits & watched the movies in the visitor center and watched a demonstration of pipe making from pipestone.
The quarries are sacred to many tribal nations of North America, and other tribes of Native Americans & were considered neutral territory in the historic past where all Nations could quarry stone for ceremonial pipes. The catlinite, or “pipestone” is traditionally used to make ceremonial pipes, vitally important to traditional Plains Indian religious practices. Archeologists believe the site has been in use for over 3000 years with Minnesota pipestone having been found inside North American burial mounts dated much earlier.
We walked the Quarry Trail & the Waterfall Trail. The Winniwissa Falls were spectacular with all the red rocks around it. Along the trail we noticed colored cloth ties (often filled with tobacco) on the trees and rocks. The represent a prayer or an offering and are placed there for spiritual purposes. As we walked the trails, we noticed a diversity of plants, even our common milkweed for the monarchs.
On our trip back to Brandon, I looked up local Wineries and found one that sounded perfect and had live music today!
🍷Wilde Prairie Winery…is a family farm located just west of beautiful Splitrock Creek on wonderful rolling hills perfect for growing grapes. They produce many fun wines all produced from South Dakota grown fruit and honey..The winery is run by Jeff & Victoria along with the help of their children and many friends. They have been making wine for more than 25 years and became South Dakota’s 9th farm winery in July 2004. The first vines were planted in 1997 and now have 2000+ vines. They have wine tasting, bottles of wine and snacks in an old barn. 🍷 Lots of country charm. ❤️🎼Music in the Vineyard 🍇 2 – 5 pm Live Music….. August 7th – Geoff Gunderson. So we enjoyed sipping our wine ( we bought a bottle of Brianna & a bottle of Frontenac, a charcuterie snack and 2 thermal cups), listening to great music on a rolling hill just relaxing and meeting the locals. On the way back we stopped at Sunshine Foods for a few items then went to campground and got things ready for tomorrow’s travel day. 85 miles today Till tomorrow, that’s all folks! 👋
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