After I
wrote the post on Saturday Sioux Falls was hit by a super cell thunderstorm
bringing heavy rain, strong winds and hail (some the size of baseballs). The center and south of town was supposed to
be the worst hit. A Target store not far
from us had a good portion of roof removed.
Although it sounded terrible, we didn’t have any damage other than a
hole in one of the air conditioning covers.
There are no dents that we can see on the coach or bike. Greg was able to fix the hole in the air
conditioning cover with some roof tape that we had left over from trying to fix
the leak in the slide out.
Today we
went up to the Garretson area, we wanted to see Palisades State Park, Devil’s
Gulch and Split Rock Park. Palisades
State Park is really beautiful. The
Split Rock River flows through the park and red quartzite pinnacles with 50
foot cliffs line both sides. The trails
through the park are kind of tricky because they have lots of the quartzite
rocks sticking up to be tripped over.
But, the
views looking up were so breathtaking, I had trouble watching where I was
going. It’s a wonder I didn’t end up
tripping into the river.
King and
Queen Rock seemed to be the interest point for a lot of rock climbers. Notice there are a few of them visible at the
top of the rock in this picture.
I thought
Balancing Rock was pretty awesome, but it was hard to get a good picture
because of a couple of little trees.
We left
Palisades State Park and headed into Garretson thinking we would stop for
lunch. Our groceries may be holding out
for things I can fix at home, but our options for packing a lunch to take with
us were pretty slim. Greg frowned on my
suggestion of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Garretson is a quiet little town of just over
1100 which closes down completely for Labor Day – no lunch.
We rode into
Split Rock Park and what we saw just didn’t appeal to us. The parking was going to be pretty precarious
for the bike so we decided to go on to Devil’s Gulch. Devil’s Gulch is a natural chasm on the Split
Rock River which features scenic rock formations of red quartzite and is the home
of the famous jump of outlaw Jesse James.
According to
legend Jesse was riding as fast as his horse could gallop because a posse from
Northfield, Minnesota was hot on his trail.
Jesse approached the chasm, quickly summarized the situation and
successfully coaxed his horse to jump the canyon and escape the posse. This legend happened in the Fall of 1876
where there is a footbridge located now.
The footbridge
is surround by a chain link fence so it’s hard to get a good picture. The trail guide we picked up said the water
below the bridge is known as Bottomless Pit.
Many years ago a 600 foot plumb line was lowered and no bottom was
found. We did walk across the footbridge
attempting to get some better pictures.
We decided
that although the rest of the trail sounded like it had a lot of beautiful
sights to offer, we didn’t go any further.
The guide said “only experienced climbers should attempt” in some
areas. Obviously that doesn’t describe
us, we are “low level walkers” at best.
Some very young people were coming back from the trail and they were
winded as they passed us where we were standing looking at the bridge.
We headed
back to Sioux Falls, stopped for some lunch and decided to end our exploration
with a visit to Veterans Park and Japanese Gardens.
The Veterans
Park is very well done and once again the Park Department shines with its
beautiful upkeep of the area.
The Japanese
Gardens runs along the Big Sioux River and was originally built in 1926 through
1936. The amount of stonework here is
amazing.
Lots of
pretty Japanese figures
This water
fowl (not sure what it is) was swimming in the river coming toward us when we
first noticed it. Greg said, “I think
that swan is drowning”. Sure enough that’s
what it looked like, its head was barely above water. We watched and it went under and didn’t come
up for a good while. Then it came up
again and went right back down. After
watching it for a while we decided it wasn’t a swan and it was fishing for
something to eat rather than drowning.
It was just totally black, it will be interesting to see if we can find
out what it is.
A waterfall
in the park was pretty to look at, and a lot of people were taking advantage of
the opportunity to cool off their feet in it on this hot day.
All in all a
beautiful day to be riding. The sky was
cloudless and bright blue, grass and crops are very green here this year and
the side ditches are filled with sunflowers in full bloom. I kind of like our adopted state.
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