May 14 - Big Bend Dam & local Native
Before we left Pierre this morning, Jen suggested a walk in the sunshine.
Just after 8 a.m. we headed out on Hwy 34 towards Sioux Falls. We thought a drive along the Missouri River appealed more than bombing down Interstate 90.
Although there are undulations in the terrain, you can pretty much see forever. We saw a cloud formation in the distance and before we knew it we were out the other side (no mountains to get in the way of the view!).
Then we saw a lot of transmission towers. They littered the countryside. It turned out we were approaching
Ft Thompson and the Big Bend dam. So we decided to go out to the dam and take a break.
We were enjoying our coffee inside Ali (windy again!) when a loud vehicle pulled in beside us. A young native man got out of his wreck of a car. He was friendly and polite and quickly admitted to being drunk. We had a brief chat. We asked him where he was going, "to the casino to get drunk". He shook our hands more than once, apologized, then hopped in his noisy car and drove off.
We finished our coffee and got back in Alfie and continued our trek east. Each time we crested a rise, the road went on before us. Pretty flat I must say.
We arrived at Sioux Falls and checked in at the Tower Campground. Unfortunately for us, the place is home to many of the pipeline crews working in the area. There was only 1 site good for the two days we planned to stay. It was in the old part of the campground, not the newly renovated area. As Jen said: "You win some, you lose some." Sure glad we're only here for two nights.
Tomorrow we will visit the city's namesake: Sioux Falls.
