A Day in Yankton and Vermillion

Well, we made it through the night of storms alright. I think it was mostly rain. It was a cool morning but the sun was shining. Amelia and I rode our bikes around a bit while Daniel worked. We also sat outside the camper and enjoyed the cool morning breeze and people watching.

Shortly after lunch, Daniel came out and we went for a bike ride (nearly 4 miles) while Amelia fished.

Afterwards, he wanted to go for a ride. We drove over Gavin's Point Dam, across the Missouri River into Nebraska and then back into town (Yankton, back in SD) where we rode around to see more of the riverside area.

Amelia had seen that Yankton had an archery center where you could go and get a day pass so we drove over there. We were quite surprised and astonished to discover the instructor working with Amelia (and Daniel joined in) was Aida Roman, an Olympic Silver Medalist (2012 London). It was a pretty neat experience!

From there we drove back over to Vermillion (the city that we came through yesterday and home of University of South Dakota). We ate an early supper, walked around downtown and had ice cream before we headed back to our camper. I ended the night outside sipping hot tea as the sun faded away (9:30 PM!)

South Dakota

We spent the last evening in Sioux City outside, sitting in the breeze as the sun was setting (8:45-9:15ish). I can't get over how late the suns sets here. On Thursday morning, we planned to get up and travel north to South Dakota. We didn't have to get up as early since it would be less than 2 hours away. A small storm came through after we fell asleep. Boy, the thunder sure does sound louder here too.

We left our spot at the Scenic Park RV Campground around 9AM this morning. We were only on the road for about 10 minutes before we crossed into South Dakota. It came so fast I didn't have the camera ready to catch the welcome sign. So I took some pics of roadside attractions instead.

We first came to Vermillion. We saw it on our map and wanted to drive through thinking it would be a small little town. We were surprised to discover it's home to the main campus of University of South Dakota (Go Yotes) and the National Music Museum. We drive around the town for a bit but didn't get out to explore. I hope we can come back through while in the area.

Daniel had been looking at areas on the Missouri River in SD as our "final" or most northern destination of this trip. He had 2 or 3 places in mind but finally settled on Yankton. After leaving Vermillion, we traveled a short distance further to Yankton. We had several campgrounds/RV parks picked out as possibilities (or so we thought), but once we pulled into the first one, we quickly realized that most of them were full time, seasonal campsites and they did not reserve for daily use. A nice lady working at the one we drove through explained to us that this area is pretty much the summer destination for most who live in the state, this is the largest recreational area on the river and a popular place to have for a "summer home". She also recommended that we try to get a reservation at the Lewis and Clark Recreation Campground. I called immediately and was able to secure a spot. We were only about 5 minutes away and thankfully they let us check in early. After we got set up, Amelia and I rode our bikes around to explore a little. This campground is huge with over 400 sites. It's beautiful here. It's like Guntersville Lake in that there's a dam here on the Missouri that created this Lewis and Clark Lake. We are looking forward to spending some time here for the weekend.

Not long after taking these pictures, some rainy weather moved into the area. We rode into town to do some laundry and make a grocery store stop. We also checked out a few thrift/antique stores before getting back to the camper. It's supposed to be stormy tonight and into the morning. Praying that we get through that ok.

Sioux City

Tuesday, July 8 made for a long driving day. We did get a great start, leaving around 6:20 AM and it remained quite cool for a good bit of the morning. We even went through a little rain as we were leaving Hannibal. As we drove west across Missouri, we couldn't get over the enormous amounts of fields of corn we saw. Of course we know there are many states that grow corn, including our own. It just makes it a reality seeing how much corn the US produces. I had to get a picture of a wind turbine again (if you scroll way back to our very first road trip, you will understand).

After what seemed like forever, we finally entered Iowa and stopped for lunch and to refuel. Initially, our plan was to drive to Omaha and stop there but Daniel decided to keep going. On Maps, it seems like it would merely be an extra couple of hours. However, when you have to drive 55-60 mph, it takes a little (lot) longer. We did drive Interstate 29 through Iowa which wasn't so bad.

We didn't stop in Omaha. This is the only picture I took.

We finally arrived in Sioux City around 3 PM. If you remember from our 2021 road trip, we stayed a night in Sioux City on our way back, near the end of that journey. Daniel and I even dropped in for a CrossFit workout at CrossFit Beo before we started driving again. Anyway, we found a campground right on the Missouri River, so we crossed a bridge over which brought us into Nebraska, into South Sioux City. This is the first time we have been in the state of Nebraska, so we can add that to our list of states visited now. Once we arrived after the long drive, we decided this place would be fine to stay for two nights. So that's where we are now.

By the way, the sun didn't set last night until 9:15 PM. But it was pretty. Hopefully we will find a few things to do today while we are here.

Three States, Three Rivers (maybe more)

We did wake up early this morning but didn't get gone as soon as Daniel would have liked. However we did leave early from Duck Creek RV Park in Paducah which made it incredibly cooler while driving most of today's journey.

We passed over so many rivers and bridges, it was hard to keep it straight. Here we are passing over the Mississippi right about where the Ohio River flows into it. This bridge took us from Kentucky into Illinois.

  

We drove for a little while in Illinois, saw a lot of corn fields and one small town that literally seemed to be a ghost town (Cairo, Illinois), like it had been abandoned in the 50's or 60's, we crossed another bridge and the Mighty Mississippi once again into Missouri. We rode around Cape Girardeau (hometown of Rush Limbaugh) for a little while. Since it was still early and it would save us nearly an hour in travel, we hopped on the interstate. It was fine until we started getting closer to St. Louis where there was much more traffic to contend with. And somewhere, we crossed the Missouri River but I can't remember where.

 After getting off the interstate and stopping for a bite to eat, we reached our destination. Hannibal, Missouri, hometown of Mark Twain. We are staying at the Mark Twain Cave Campground and was able to go and tour the cave (which I didn't even know about) this afternoon. It was pretty neat although nowhere near the size of "our cave" (Cathedral Caverns). After we ate some supper at the camper, we headed into downtown Hannibal and walked around a few of the blocks. There was an orchestra of sorts set up right on the street so we stood and listened to that for a bit, walked by the river (Mississippi) and tried to find the childhood home of Mark Twain.

It will be another early rise for us tomorrow. Hopefully we can get packed up and on the way a little faster than we did today.