Le Mars, Iowa and Sioux Falls, South Dakot!

29 July 2013

On our way to Le Mars, we tried to visit a wind farm.  The Iowa tourism website gave a highway number as the address and when we got to that highway and didn’t see an obvious visitor center, I called their 800 number to get the scoop.  Well….there isn’t a visitor’s center, just a brochure that we would have to backtrack six miles to get.  Didn’t think that was worth it, so that was it for the wind farm tour. Saw lots more Iowa county roads and fields of corn though.

Le Mars is the ice cream capital of the world as declared by the Iowa state legislature. Of course, we had to have an ice cream sundae at the Blue Bunny ice cream parlor. Most excellent! The town is a smallish medium sized town, well taken care of and totally focused on celebrating 100 years of Blue Bunny ice cream. There are numerous large fiberglass ice cream cones around the downtown area, each uniquely decorated by a volunteer organization. We have seen this kind of thing in other cities (moose in Talkeetna, Alaska, buffalos in Great Falls, Montana) and it is always fun to see how imaginative people can be.

Up to now, we have managed to avoid any major thunderstorms. Not so on Thursday night.  There was a HUGE storm with lots of rain and wind which lasted, at least in my mind, entirely too long. I have never heard thunder roll continuously for such a long time. One good side effect was that the van and trailer got a good scrubbing, so they looked very nice the next day. And the temperatures have really cooled down; in fact, we had to turn the heat on overnight.

We drove up to Orange City, the county seat for Sioux county, to look for records on my mom’s mother’s family. We didn’t find much, which was surprising since there were 8 or 10 kids in her mom’s family and I thought I would find lots of birth records. But, it wasn’t a total loss.  Orange City is a Dutch founded town with some very nice buildings and windmills. And it was a beautiful day for a drive. We picked up some fresh sweet corn for dinner from a roadside stand – delicious!

We traveled up to Sioux Falls for a couple of days to see some more of Russ’ family. Had a lovely dinner with two of his aunts (Thelma is 97 years young!), a couple of cousins and family members. We saw them last year when we were in Sioux Falls and it was terrific to see them again!

We went out to dinner in downtown Sioux Falls on Friday night for our 28^th wedding anniversary. The downtown area has a sculpture walk which we did last year. It was fun to see the new ones on display for this year. Stopped by an Irish Fair in the Falls park area for a short while and watched some young girls doing Irish dancing. The pipes and drums were nice to listen to also.

We are diving back into the backroads of Iowa tomorrow.  We will explore the northern part of the state while continuing to connect with more of Russ’ family. Going to be looking for more of that delicious sweet corn!

 

This is the closest we got to a wind turbine. This is part of the Buena Vista wind farm, one of the largest in the world.

 

This ice cream cone is about five feet tall and is located in front of a bank.

This cone is in front of the town's movie theater.

A beautiful mural celebrating 100 years of Blue Bunny ice cream production in Le Mars.

Even the local wildlife likes the ice cream!

Yummy!!

 

He thinks he is hiding in plain sight so he can catch the bird.

Hubby gets spoiled with French toast for breakfast on mornings where we are staying more than one night.

Another beautiful courthouse, this one is in Sioux County.



There were beautifully restored benches and tables in the main foyer to sit at while looking for records. Nice!

 

Another beautiful mural. This one commemorates Tulips Days in Orange City, Iowa.

There were a number of small windmill models in the city park, along with a canal and bridge.

This windmill is 76 feet tall and houses the Orange City Chamber of Commerce.

 

It was a beautiful day to drive along Iowa's country roads.

Long coneflowers in a garden dedicated to native prairie plants.

One of the many sculptures in downtown Sioux Falls area.

Part of the Sioux Falls.  More water, I think, than what we saw last year.