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Saturday, August 10, 2013

Falls Park, Sioux Falls


We may have stayed in Minnesota, but we made the half hour drive in to Sioux Falls two out of our three days there. One of the main attractions is Park Falls, which highlights the namesake of the town and some of its local history.

great view of the falls from the tower - beware the gift shop!

Since we have a closer up image of me than usual, let me digress just a moment.  Wayne is one of those awful patients, that stubborn 1% who refuses to adapt to no-line progressive lenses.  I've forced him to try 4 different times, each time just to have to remake them into computer only lenses.  He now has 3 different powers of "readers" lying around the house, but only wears glasses for distance when he's driving his work truck.  (Which he then has to take off and put on another pair to use his laptop for work orders.)  When we travel I do the packing and those readers all stay at home, forcing him to wear the pair of lined bifocals I made him keep last year to have something that was somewhat multipurpose.  So, I'm reading my Kindle in the camper and he comes over to give me a kiss and says, "Your face looks old today."  My reply was, "my face looks old every day, you just never see it well because you won't wear your bifocals!" 

Before anyone is offended on my account that he said I looked old, I'm okay with the fact that I'm not a youngster anymore and this upset me a lot less than the fact that he won't wear his glasses!  While we've been touring around I've had to read everything for him, even the giant outdoor menu at a restaurant.  Really?  Wear your glasses!


 
Mahogany granite sculpture - hydroelectric building converted into cafe at back

The first attempt to settle a town here at the falls on the Big Sioux River in the 1850's was thwarted by the Civil War, conflicts with native tribes, and a Depression which discouraged settlers from making their way here.  The town was abandoned in 1862.  In the early 1870's people started arriving again and the town really took off in the late 1870's with the arrival of the railroad.



In addition to the ruins of the electric plant that was here, there is the turbine room from the Queen Bee Mill and traces of the supports for the flume that ran to it. 




 

The Sioux Quartzite exposed here on the river is on the pinker side, and of course a lot of it was quarried in the area long ago.  The stone is incredibly hard, almost as hard as a diamond, which made it more expensive to work with and eventually other materials replaced it.  Now its quarried mostly for gravel uses in the area, you can see bits of it in the pavement.


As we were leaving the park I got my first close up look at one of the many sculptures in town entitled "For Which It Stands".  It was voted the 2006 People's Choice winner from their local SculptureWalk.  Upcoming posts will have lots of sculptures, starting with that one!

9 comments:

  1. Ha Ha! Good response to the 'Your face looks old today' crack!

    I claim Sioux Falls as my residence, but I've never visited the park. Guess I had better do that one of these days. :)

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    1. Everything about Sioux Falls was nice from the people to the food to the sights. I'm not much for cities, but this one seemed like a nice place to live actually. I feel that way about Madison, Wisconsin as well.

      And you can't be married successfully for 24 years without dealing out a little honesty with a dash of humor, right?

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  2. I had never really thought about what the falls of Sioux Falls looked like. What a lovely park - and I can't believe you (above) have never visited if you live there!!

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    1. Full-time rv'ers pick a state of residence but tend to just breeze into town once a year to fulfill residency requirements and take care of paperwork. South Dakota is a favorite due to tax concerns and if I'm not mistaken there is no jury duty obligation either, kind of hard when you live all over the country on any given day! We'll probably choose it ourselves when the time comes, I know Texas and Florida are popular as well. Our daughter just moved to the WI/MI border and I'm sure our son will stay in WI as well, so SD will be easy to swing through once a year if needed.

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  3. All of my glasses travel with me. What is he thinking anyway? More to the point, you never tell a woman "You look old today". Perhaps Wayne needs more than just his eyes examined.

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    1. He's spoiled by the fact that I'm not like most women. Every husband should have one like me! I also don't want gifts, not even at Christmas.

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  4. That place would look so much better without the city there. I just ware glasses for reading though I think it will not be long before I need distance ones as well. Think if I told my wife she looked old she would kill me.

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  5. Hey Wayne... there is a standard answer to "how do I look?' - especially when asked how she looks in a certain outfit. Telling her that her "face looks old today" isn't one of them. Unless, of course, you are good at ducking the swing of a frying pan. :^)

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    1. I'm the odd duck that appreciates honesty. Trust me, I do look older, and he does spend a lot of time telling me how "hot" I am. I tend to roll my eyes but say thank you. My daughter didn't get her feminist tendencies just from reading books! For most gentlemen, however, it is wise not to tell your lady she looks old..or fat.

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