Sioux Falls, South Dakota

 Usually we stop in Sioux Falls to get in a visit with some of Russ' cousins and family.  But some were out of town on holiday, so we decided to wait until we come back through in late September for our visit.  We used our time in Sioux Falls to catch up on some cleaning, shopping and sleep.  We have basically focused on getting mileage in so that we can have as much time as we can in Wisconsin.  So we haven't done much sightseeing - hoping to get some in on our return trip.

South Dakota is very green on the east part of the state. The corn is growing well (at least to these inexperienced eyes) and the soy beans look good too. Those seem to be the two main crops. Occasionally we will see a field of some type of grain or pumpkins, but not very often. I enjoy seeing the well kept yards, apparently the women in the family have the main job of mowing the large yards. I have seen several women out riding a lawnmower, but no men as yet. 

After the thunderstorms in Nebraska, we are enjoying clear but hot days in Sioux Falls. We drove out to Canton for a visit. This is the town that my mother and Florence grew up back in the 1920s and '30s. It is always fun to wander through the town and remembering the places and stories that both parents told us. The town is not much larger than it was back when they were growing up and it seems like a well tended profitable little town. I suspect many of the residents commute the 15 miles or so to Sioux Falls because there is not much industry in town. It seems like Sioux Falls is expanding to the south more than any other directions, so it isn't implausible that Canton will be subsumed into the city sometime in the distant future.

The corn in South Dakota looks very healthy. We saw an occasional field that was tasseling.

Definitely John Deere country.

As soon as we entered South Dakota, we started seeing Wall Drug signs.  Even though we have been there before, we are planning another stop on the way home.

Many of the farms  visible from the interstate were well kept and large.

Others were in disrepair and still others looked abandoned.

Downtown Canton was sporting beautiful hanging baskets of pink geraniums. We saw several small towns that had dressed up their downtown with these hanging displays. Would love to see Long Beach do something like this (just please, no cactuses!)

Like other Midwest states, South Dakota takes very seriously the establishment of beautiful and impressive county courthouses. Canton is the county seat and has a very nice town square that is well maintained.

This building, now a quilting retreat, once was a bank where Russ' grandfather worked in the evenings and weekends doing custodian tasks. 

There are several beautiful large homes built around the turn of the 1900s. This one happens to be for sale and the realtor is one of Russ' cousins.

This is the last home that Russ' grandparents lived in. Russ remembers going there on visits and occasionally being given a sack of nails to enjoy his time hammering the nails into a board. Apparently, this was a great way of keeping Russ out of trouble while the adults visited. We recently found out from Florence that this was around the 8th home that her parents lived in during their years in Canton.  They always rented and each move represented a step up in the amenities of the home - the first move got them a home with electricity, the second brought indoor water, the third had an indoor bathroom and so on.

There is a very nice automatic car wash in Canton that we like to go to.  We put in the money, drive into the place until a stop sign lights, then sit for a few minutes while the machine moves around and up over the truck washing and rinsing. This time we opted for some type of treatment which squirted stuff out on the truck before scrubbing and then rinsing it off. The stuff squirted out blue and pink with the blue on the driver's side - were the colors really necessary or was there a gender stereotype going on? Guess I will give them the benefit of the doubt since the truck does come out nice and clean.