Day 8: Watertown to Council Bluffs IA

Jim saw another sign yesterday on highway 12 in the middle of SD. Advertising a motel, it said, "Free Beer." I saw it too this time.

At Watertown we returned from the wilderness to find McDonalds, chain hotels and restaurants -- but no "free beer" motels. My phone, the one that has been on Central Time since Idaho, is now in the right time zone, but cannot get reception for some reason. No bars at all places. I can no longer blame the wilderness -- not sure what happened to it.

Watertown SD is in the plains, dotted with an unusual number of small lakes. They are everywhere. These "pothole" lakes are remnants of the ice ages (evidently there were 4 or 5 of them) when glaciers repeatedly dipped into the great plains an covered this area. The lakes formed from ice chunks trapped in low spots during the repeated global warming between ice ages. I guess the difference between these potholes and the massive glacial lake Missoula is plains verses mountain valleys.

Before leaving Watertown, we stopped at the local Walmart Trading Post to re-provision. then we stopped for a walk around the grounds of the Redlin Art Center. It is like a park with small lakes, flocking geese, several gazebos and curving walking paths leading up to an imposing colonial style building on a hill -- well, slight incline.

Terry Redlin is a very successful local artist who has given millions to charities and donated this center to his native Watertown. Inside, he displays 150 of his paintings. it looks like he also designed the building -- according to a copyright notice posted by the front door. I didn't know you could copyright buildings. And he furnished the three story mansion with his complete line of furniture. He is quite a versatile artist.

Terry grew up wanting to be a forest ranger, but a motorcycle accident cost him a leg and that dream. One good thing came out of it. He received a "handicapped student" scholarship to art school. He put in his time as a commercial artist until fear of being laid off during an economic downturn caused him to take preemptive action. People loved his work and the rest is history.

Jim loved the building and architecture. he said he could see himself living there. I said it was beautiful, but I couldn't see myself cleaning it nor him mowing the grounds, so he might have to go back to work. (might anyway the way the stock market is going -- ouch)

We finally returned to reality and the Interstate and headed south to Sioux country. On our way from Sioux Falls to Sioux City, we passed by the Centerville exit. According to my Roadside Geology of south Dakota, a small meteorite ( 1.6 lbs ) fell on Centerville in 1956 and crashed through an aluminum barn roof. This reminds me of a certain super hero.... The meteorite and a piece of the barn roof are in a museum in Rapid City. I wonder if it is green ??

We passed by the birthplace of Laura Ingles Wilder -- this is definitely Little House on the Prairie country. Sioux City is located at the confluence of the Missouri and Sioux Rivers. We stopped at the "Welcome to Iowa" Visitor Center located in an old river tug boat named The Sergeant Floyd. It had been removed from the water with some difficulty -- I guess they didn't account for the ballast. It is now a very interesting museum and visitor center.

I guess the river was once bustling with activity and a main mode of transportation for goods and people. Now these historic boats have been reassigned as visitor centers, museums, and casinos along the river. All that is left to remember that past.

The US Corps of Engineers had a fleet of these boats all named for a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Sergeant Charles Floyd was the only member of the group to lose his life ( natural causes - no Indians involved) and he is buried near Sioux City.

Further into Iowa, along the river we stopped at another Lewis and Clark park. This one had two full-size replicas of the keel boats used by the expedition. Jim saw a woman using a cell phone so he talked to her and confirmed that there is something wrong with our phone, not ATT coverage in this area.

She turned out to be a guide waiting for a tour bus of folks to arrive. She told us that Lewis's boat maker was a drunk, which caused Lewis to get a late start on the journey. After they were underway, they added the top cabin to the boat and installed hinged lids to the storage boxes along both sides of the boat so that they could open them to provide extra protection in case of Indian attack.

We stopped for the night in council Bluffs, across the river from Omaha, Nebraska. Laundry time, then the VP debates