July 29: Post 2 -- My first stop in Sioux Falls was the USS South Dakota memorial. I had read about this in the guidebooks and was curious what they had done. The ship was decommissioned after WW2 and eventually scrapped. Various parts of the ship were stored at military sites all over the place. I gather that one of the commanders of the ship had retired to Sioux Falls and was involved in obtaining these various parts. Rather than just displaying the parts in a random order, the parts will placed generally in their relative position in an outline of the ship (made of concrete it looked like). There was a central building which had some other equipment from the ship and also some models. On the outside of the building were plaques for the various battles in which the ship was involved. For a relatively small city, it was a fairly impressive effort.
Getting downtown was fairly easy. When I found the zoning/planning office, they were very helpful in getting me a map (my first big one). An engineer even took me to an annex where the GIS department had just been set up.
The printing was going to take a bit so I left my number and wandered down the the historic courthouse to have a look. It actually was several museums in one (I recall quilting an visual arts). I did see the balcony and the main courtroom (very empty). Before I could get much further, I got a call that the map was ready, so I splashed my way back to City Hall. After some confusion on where the map was, I paid for it and left.
Here's a slideshow of the photos from my time in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
My next stop was Rapid City, North Dakota. The distance was estimated at 340 miles. This is when I realized my vacation plans were a bit much. I'd already spent 3 or 4 hours getting to Sioux Falls. Now I had a trip equivalent to my drives from Los Angeles to San Jose and it was closing in on 3 PM. Plus, the rain didn't look like it was going away. On my list of things for next time is to plan less ambitiously. This was less ambitious in the number of cities visited in a day, but the distances are larger than before. Probably I should plan to alternate between driving days and sightseeing days.
Anyway, I headed down the I90 west with rain and overcast as far as I could see. After a grace period with no construction, they started popping up again, including one that was 20 miles long. Eventually the rain became less and less and the sun finally broke out. By the time I got to Rapid City the sun was becoming a bit of a problem - I was heading West and it was getting late. On the plus side, I picked up an hour, so I wasn't as late as I thought.
Finally, I have to admit that I was taken by some roadside advertising. Somewhere on my drive, I started noticing small billboards for Wall Drugs. They were almost all unique and often amusing. I don't recall how long they had been showing up, but after seeing them for quite a while, there was a sign saying "Only 150 miles to go". My guess is they were out at least 200 miles before the exit.
I got so curious about the place I decided to stop off for dinner (Wall is a town about 50 miles East of Rapid City). The place was in some ways a tourist trap. There wasn't anything there to see except the store, which was more like a small department store than a drug store/diner. The food was cafeteria style and OK. Most of the stuff that I saw for sale was rather kitschy western in one way or another. Still, my expectations weren't high; I was just curious. Once satisfied I headed on to Rapid City and made it there a little after 8 PM (Mountain Time).More tomorrow.
Ted
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