Sioux Falls, SD - ND - MN

Day #14-16 (August 14, 2022): Nebraska has some fantastic state parks, and we thoroughly enjoyed the various activities that the three parks we visited offered. All three parks were within about 15 minutes of one another, which was fantastic for us to pop between the three depending on which activity we desired. Thank you, Nebraska, for an amazing glimpse of rural Midwest life and culture. Now we are headed to your northern neighbor—South Dakota! Of course, along our route, we drove past many more miles of fields of corn and soybeans, passing over the Nebraska line into Iowa for even more agricultural landscape in the “Fields of Opportunities” state. We arrived in Sioux Falls, SD, that afternoon, and after parking our rig at the Big Sioux Recreation Area, we headed to Murph’s Burgers & Fries for some of the yummiest hamburgers we’ve ever eaten. Wow! Delicious! So, so good! Murph’s is evidently known for their “world famous bacon jam.” Chris is the only one in our crowd who tried it, but he said it was good! Afterward, we made a family grocery run at Walmart, and then headed back to the camper to settle in for the night.

Day #15 (August 15, 2022): Weather forecasts predicted all-day rain in Sioux Falls and we knew our time in this part of the country was limited, so we decided to take the opportunity to make a quick day trip up to the North Dakota-Minnesota sister cities of Fargo-Moorhead. We decided we better start our trip to Fargo right by visiting Yelp’s #1 tourist attraction first—the Fargo-Moorhead Visitor Center.

Since ND is known for its wheat production, the visitor center resembles a grain elevator.

Very pretty and unique. The kids…ahh-hem future Harding Bisons…posed in front of a multi-colored Bison.

We briefly admired “the most notorious prop in cinematic history”: The Woodchipper from the movie Fargo, which we haven’t seen nor did we recognize the woodchipper. After discussing the local offerings with the helpful ladies at the visitor’s center, we headed across the state line, aka the Red River, to the Hjemkomst Center in Moorhead, MN. The Hjemkomst Center houses two of the most inspiring and breath-taking “retirement projects” of two different men. It is absolutely mind-boggling what each man, both retired educators, accomplished in the names of hobby, curiosity, passion, and retirement. First, Guy Paulson built and carved an exact true-to-size replica of the 12th century Hopperstad Stave Church in Vik, Norway. What?! He built and carved a full-size church building?!? Yes!!

The amount of detail is astounding and hard to describe. He finished it in 1998 after 5 years of work and donated it to the city of Moorhead to serve as a reminder of the Scandinavian heritage of the Red River Valley. It is a beautiful piece of art and is well-worth visiting. Second, Robert Asp built a full-scale replica of the Gokstad Viking ship, naming it the Hjemkomst, meaning “homecoming” in Norwegian, in hopes of sailing it from Minnesota to Norway. He started building the ship in 1974, was diagnosed with leukemia a few months later, continued to build the ship despite his illness, finished it in 1980, and sailed it on Lake Superior before dying four months later. In 1982, his family and friends turned his dream into reality by sailing the Hjemkomst from Duluth, MN, to Oslo, Norway! Remarkable! Both are amazing stories, and incredibly inspiring.

The power of a dream, wow! While Emily loved the Hjemkomst Center, the kids’ most notable memory of Minnesota, however, is stopping at the Dairy Queen location that created the iconic Dilly Bar, a favorite ice cream treat of our beloved Dado! We ordered Dilly Bars and dipped cones and took a picture in front of the huge, oversized Dilly Bar.

Afterward, we headed to Bonanzaville in West Fargo, SD, where it has 12 acres of 41 historic buildings filled with antiques.

You could spend all day there seeing everything there is to see! It is very cool and well-worth the visit. Interestingly, Fargo has two Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives-featured restaurants, but we only had time to experience one. We drove to downtown Fargo and dined at Pounds.

We ordered what Guy Ferrari ate—wings with Torch sauce and the BBQ Porker (mac ‘n’ cheese topped with pulled pork)—as well as pickle fries with avocado ranch for an appetizer and kid’s mac ‘n’ cheese for B. According to our waiter, Guy said Pounds’ wings were in his Top 5, and after dinner, we could see…no, taste…why. We tried the wings in their signature Torch sauce, as well as their Dr. Pepper BBQ sauce, Buffalo sauce, and sweet chili lime sauce. All were fantastic, but Torch was the boys’ favorite, while Dr. Pepper BBQ was the girls’ fav. Later, we drove through the flat fields of wheat and wind turbines back to our campground in Sioux Falls, SD, enjoying a beautiful sunset along the way, and arrived back late that night thankful that we were able to dodge the day’s rain and mark off another 2 states on our list.

We may try to hit Minnesota, the Land of 10,000 Lakes, next summer when we hit more Midwest states, so that we can see more of its namesake, but just in case we don’t, we were glad we ate our Dilly Bars and dipped cones and marveled at the handiwork of two talented, dedicated retirees In Minnesota. What a great day!

Day #16 (August 16, 2022): Tuesdays and Thursdays are Chris’ main days for virtual meetings and large blocks of time dedicated to work. So, after finishing some morning schoolwork, the kids, Emily, and Mac headed off to explore and enjoy the Sioux Falls area, so that Chris could have a quiet, uninterrupted “office” from which to work. We drove to the nearby Palisades State Park and walked a few trails along Splitrock Creek and the gorge through which it flows.

The quartzite rock walls and cliffs lining the gorge is stunning! We then drove five minutes down the road to visit Devil’s Gulch, the exact point in the gorge where the outlaw Jesse James, the Robin Hood of the Midwest, jumped the ravine on horseback in 1876 to flee and escape from pursuing authorities after robbing a bank in Northfield, Minnesota, his last and final bank robbery. The infamous crossing is a sight to behold and marvel at the desperation of Jesse James and the bravery and loyalty of his horse! Wow! There is now a metal chain-link bridge so visitors can stand and look down deep into the gorge and see the creek running underneath. We hiked down to the creek, which through erosion and silting, has filled in the waterway to not near as deep of a drop as it was 146 years ago in the days of Jesse James, which would have made it all-the-more terrifying. A nearby sign stated the water in the creek used to measure over 600 feet deep under the bridge. On that day, it looked like it might go up to our knees at best. That evening, the whole family drove to downtown Sioux Falls to explore Falls Park, the city’s namesake and a huge complex of waterfalls. The water was below its normal level due to the summer’s drought, making the waterfall not as huge and powerful as other times in the year. However, it was cool to be able to cross the oversized rocks of the riverbed and sit on them for some photo-ops.