On Wednesday
we went in to renew our driver’s licenses.
We had appointments so the whole process was over in about 20 minutes
and we are good for another five years.
The good news of the day was I could truthfully say I weigh 15 pounds
less than I did five years ago. The bad
news was that during that five years I had at one time lost an additional 22
pounds that I have since regained. I’m
going to have to have another go at this, maybe I can be down another 15 by the
time renewals come around again. Too bad
I enjoy cooking and eating so much.
Thursday was
spent cleaning out some of the dust we accumulated in our trek through Kansas
and Nebraska. I got a real burst of
energy and decided to dust the insides of the cabinets in the bedroom and bath
and while I was at it I rearranged a few things. Afghans and throw pillows either got tossed
in the washer or run through the dryer to shake out the dust we accumulated during
the dust storms we went through in Nebraska.
By Friday we
were set to get out and play. We started
off our day at Five Guys. Neither of us
had ever been there so we decided to check it out. Great burgers and fries (note to self: this
will not help me lose weight). For those
of you who haven’t been to a Five Guys, I would advise ordering the “little”
burger and the “little” order of fries.
Greg and I decided to split a “regular” order of fries, a “little” one
would have been enough to split.
Falls Park
in Sioux Falls is a must see. I was
mesmerized by it the last time we were here and couldn’t wait to see it
again. The Big Sioux River runs through
a bed of Sioux Quartzite. Quartzite “pink
rock” is the hardest rock second to diamond.
The Queen
Bee Mill ground its first flour on October 25, 1881. At the time it was one of the most advanced
in America. The remains of the seven-story mill, lay on the east bank of the
river. The mill closed in 1883, a victim
of inadequate water power and a short supply of wheat. In 1956 fire destroyed the wooden roof and
interior floors. The upper floors were
knocked down to prevent them from falling.
A millrace
and dam were originally constructed to provide power for the Queen Bee
Mill. The dam was razed in 1908 to
supply power to the hydroelectric plant.
What is now
the Falls Overlook Café was once the Sioux Falls Light & Power
Company. The quartzite building that
opened in 1908 housed three 500-kilowatt hydroelectric generators. The plant was abandoned in 1974 and later
donated to the city. The Café retains a
lot of the original industrial look of the electric plant.
The Visitor
Center is attached to a five story observation tower.
View of the
park from the observation tower. Notice
the quartzite that is exposed throughout the park.
Spring
flowers are starting to pop up.
This is
home, or at least home to our mail.
Dakota Post has been a great help to us in the fulltiming adventure.
Our last
stop of the day before going to square dance this evening was a stop at the
Strawbale Winery. We visited this winery
five years ago for a wine tasting. We
liked most of the wines we tasted except for the black current wine. So, we made a special trip back this year to
get black current wine. You see, what we
found out from them on our first trip was that even though we wouldn’t drink
the wine straight, it was fabulous in their wine slushy recipe!
Their
tasting room is small but very nice.
This outside
area is crowded during the summer when they have local bands in, that starts in
a couple of weeks and we will be gone by then.
On Friday
evening one of our favorite square dance callers, Jerry Junck, was calling for
the local square dance club so we decided to spend a couple of hours
dancing. Some of the local dancers
remembered us from five years ago. I
think we made an impression riding in on a big Harley to square dance. We danced with them again on Saturday
morning.
We will be
leaving tomorrow morning making a couple of stops before we get back to
northern Indiana to have our refrigerator repaired.
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