The next morning, we woke up bright eyed and bushy-tailed, and ready to hit the road. Okay, maybe not. But we did have to get going, so we made the most of it. Since it was a much more reasonable hour to be looking for food, we had our choice of restaurants in which to eat. We choose a trying-to-be-authentic diner type place where the food was yummy. A half hour later, we were happy, well-fed, and ready to hit the road from Sioux Falls to Fargo.
This is me in front of the diner. You would not believe
how bright the sun is out in the Midwest!
Before we headed out, we decided to see a few of the sights that Sioux Falls had to offer, since we had driven out of our way to visit there, after all. But since time was short, we planned to only stop and see "the falls", from which, presumably, Sioux Falls gets its name. I should mention that the previous evening at dinner we'd mentioned our plans to stop by the falls to our waitress, and were warned away from it, as apparently it is where the "bad element" of Sioux Falls hangs out.
The falls turned out to be pretty, with some interesting historicity as well. As we were driving out of town, we passed by this beautiful red stone building, which we ooh'ed and aah'ed over appropriately. We realized it was a museum, and were oh-so-sad we didn't have time to stop and see it. And then we looked at one another, as we were driving by, and realized, "Good grief! We've come all this way, and we *not* stopping to see the things we want?!? How stupid is that?", especially since, at this point, we were right on time for our arrival in Fargo. So we pulled a little U-turn right there, and went on in. I have seldom been so glad that I decided to take the time to stop and smell the roses. The museum was as beautiful on the inside as it was on the outside, and full of all kinds of neat stuff. Definitely worth the hour we "wasted", especially since when we hit the gift shop on our way out, we got at least half of our gifts for friends at home bought.
Sadly, when we went in, we forgot to pay the parking meter (in fact, I don't even think we saw it), and actually had a ticket when we came out. The funny thing about Sioux Falls was that a. their parking tickets were incredibly cheap, and b. they had special mailboxes around the downtown area where you could drop off your ticket with payment, and then your ticket was even cheaper. So we went on a search for one of these boxes, and found one fairly easily.
And, in finding the drop-box, we saw one of the funniest signs in Sioux Falls. I've left the picture full-size here, to make sure you can read the text on the sign (Sorry the photo is a lil' fuzzy). If only we'd known that Thursday night was "Diva Night" at Jamz, we might have had more fun than just sitting in our hotel room last night! But alas, we didn't know, and shall be forever doomed to wonder exactly what "Diva Night" in Sioux Falls really means.
With one last giggle, we headed out of Sioux Falls and onto the open road towards Fargo, and the weekend of relaxation that awaited us. The only truly sad part of our trip came when we passed a sign for "The Little Town on the Prairie", (yes, the very same one as in the books) and decided to visit it, and then finally got to the exit and realized it was another 50 miles due west, *completely* out of our way, and we were running late. Carrie spent the rest of the weekend trying to convince me that we really could make it back there on Sunday, and still make our flight to Boston back in Minneapolis. Looking at the map, it would have taken a wormhole to do it, so that will have to wait for another trip out to South Dakota. Oh, wait. And Carrie was very, very sad we didn't have time to visit the Corn Palace either. But, again, it was completely out of our way.
Other than the one sad spot of no Little House on the Prairie, our drive from Sioux Falls to Fargo was relaxing and a lot of fun. Even the half hour of rain we encountered (the only time all weekend the top was up on the car) wasn't enough to dampen our spirits. Keeping to the plan, we stayed off the highway as much as we could, and drove mostly on back roads. Despite it's inherent flatness, eastern South Dakota is beautiful, and it was a wonderful drive. Well, except for when Carrie decided to see how fast the car would go. I don't think she got it to top speed before I wigged out and made her slow down. But, it was the first time I've gone triple-digit speeds in a car. Bugs were actually arcing up over the windshield, instead of impacting it, we were going so fast!
Below are a couple of pictures showing just how beautiful the landscape was. These were both taken at a rest stop right at the North Dakota/SouthDakota state line. You can almost get a sense of how big and empty everything was, but not quite.
From here, it was just a hop, skip and a jump, and we were arriving in Fargo, pulling up to the retreat at the C'mon Inn!
No, I'm not kidding.