route map
You can see I didn’t really cover many miles today – it was just over 100 total – but I didn’t know how long I’d be spending in Sioux Falls and didn’t want to push it when I planned the itinerary.
Because I had plenty of time, I didn’t take the interstate but instead a state road that parallels it. At least, that was the plan. But I soon started seeing signs telling me the road ahead was closed – one sign said there was a bridge out. I kept ignoring them and refusing to take their suggestion of hitting the interstate. But finally, soon after the tiny town of Spencer, the signs sounded desperate and I finally took the hint and went down to I-90. I went down 2 exits and got back on SD-38 at the town of Salem, pop. 1,371.
Along the way I was thinking about the RV. Part of me was ready to get a new one and try to find someone who wanted this one. But I doubted whether I could even give this one away, because of so much being wrong with it. Actually, most things are still operating just fine, but most of what people look for when they buy something is a mess. It’s all cosmetic, but the fact is that Lily’s put her claws into everything she can reach, and there’s dog hair (plus mine and Lily’s) absolutely everywhere and it’d be a process getting it all out, and the decals on the outside are peeling off thanks to that over-zealous car wash I got in Texas, plus the mattress I got in Maryland is a single so either only one person would want this or two people would need to get a new mattress. Things like that. Cosmetic, like I said, but it’d still take a lot of effort and some money to make this poor little thing look decent again. Given that fact, and given my strong streak of sentimentality – after-all-we’ve-been-through-so-far kind of thing – I expect I’ll just keep trying to solve whatever problems come up and keep the little guy I started with.
You know, that woman at the Visitor Center told me people were East River and cows were West River. But all day I went through places like Montrose, pop. 472, and Humboldt, pop. 521, both clearly farming towns. I passed miles of crops – corn and fields where hay had been harvested and soybeans and cows. It all looked pretty rural to me.
I came to Hartford, pop. 2,534 – “On the Edge of Everything,” they say.
And then Sioux Falls, the state’s largest city at 192,517 residents (2020 figures).
I had recycling stuff piling up and found a drop-off site online here in Sioux Falls, so I went there first. What a relief to be able to dump all that stuff crowding my bathroom.
Of course my main destination was the falls themselves, and they were worth it.
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| The Sioux Falls |
This sight is right on the edge of downtown. Not just town but downtown. They were created 14,000 years ago when the last glacier left the Big Sioux River on its current course, across these rocks. There’s a good-sized city park along both banks of the falls, lots of places to walk, a cafe overlooking the falls, a visitor center, and some historic artifacts. It’s a nice set-up and the dogs enjoyed the walk.
Nearby I saw a Smithfield pork processing plant, and it rang a bell for me. I looked it up and sure enough, this was one of those that was hit so hard by COVID, early in the pandemic when Trump ordered the meat processing plants back to work, but neither he nor the SD governor urged many protections for the workers. As a result, 1,294 people from or related to this plant got sick and 4 died. This was 44% of SD’s COVID cases at that time. The workers say they were allowed few mitigation measures, so it’s no wonder so many got sick. I honestly don’t know how either the Smithfield people or the governor can look at themselves in the mirror every day after something like this. But the governor – Kristi Noem – seems to be planning a major role in national politics. It looks like she wants to run for president but might settle for being #2 on the ticket with DeSantis or Abbott. These are some amazing governors we’ve got in this country – all of them running for higher office based on how many constituents they can place at risk of serious illness.
I’d heard people elsewhere in South Dakota say they didn’t like Sioux Falls, but I did. At least, I liked what I saw in the short time I was here. Besides the park along the falls, there were other parks in town, one with a replica of the famous statue of David. I can’t help but wonder what the politics were that allowed a nude statue – however famous – to be very publicly displayed in a conservative state like South Dakota.
I saw lots of sculptures around town. In particular there was an amazing dragon sculpture in front of Frontier Bank, but I couldn’t get a photo and I couldn’t find one online. I’ll have to go back sometime and take a picture of it. I passed an old Carnegie library building. There were apartments everywhere possible – which means to me this is a young town with more singles than families.
On the way out of town I passed the USS South Dakota Battleship Memorial at yet another park but decided not to stop this trip. Maybe another time through.
We went from Sioux Falls back into the country to tonight’s campground, where I’d planned to stay 2 nights – it not being so easy to get camping reservations on weekends.
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