Day 29 - Tuesday thru Day 32 - Friday - Our new hometown
On Tuesday we packed up and left the great campground in the
middle of the Missouri and had a
very easy drive to our home for the next 4 nights in Brandon SD. Brandon
is an eastern suburb of Sioux Falls,
where we were about to establish residency.
The campground, in Big Sioux Recreation Area, was delightfully
rural. There was nobody at the booth so
we disconnected the car and were going to head for our campsite.
There was a dump station on the left as we drove in, and
since we'd spent several nights at places with no dump, we decided to dump on
the way in. Vicky drove the RV into the
dump lane, which was designed for vehicles coming the other way, so she had to
make a loop. To avoid a drop-off on the
right, she kept close to the left - too close!
As I came over after parking the car, she said "the RV won't
move!". I checked and discovered
the reason it wouldn't move was it was now "connected" to a metal
post which had already damaged the door to one of the under-floor
compartments. It's actually a good thing
it wouldn't move because one inch further and the post would have taken out our
exhaust!
With the help of another RVer (who was even newer at this
than we are!) we got the RV extricated, completed the dump and safely backed
into our campsite among the trees. Had a
good meal cooked over the fire (including smores) and that ended Tuesday.
Wednesday we drove the car into Sioux
Falls and visited our new home address - the mail
forwarding service office. It's in an
old warehouse close to the railroad tracks.
The second and third floors have been converted into offices, and the
first (ground) floor has interesting shops and restaurants. Erin from the mail
forwarding company showed us the old doors into the stairwells, which still
have counterweights to endure they close if you forget! We checked out a gourmet kitchen/food store,
had coffee in a cute restaurant and Vicky made an appointment to have her hair
cut on Friday.
After picking up our mail we got directions to the county
office and went over there to get our car and RV registered. On the way we got our first view of Sioux
Falls which, as we would find, is a very friendly and
well tended city. There was a huge line
for registration but it moved very quickly since there were a lot of open
windows. We produced ID and were able to
get our South Dakota plates for
the car with no problem. When we came to
do the RV we had everything except the unladen weight of the RV, which they
needed. Deb, the very friendly lady who
was helping us, tried everything and I went online trying to find it, but no
luck. I know it's on a placard in the RV
so we'll have to come back after photographing and uploading it.
Next stop was lunch in another surprisingly good Mexican
restaurant and then on to the driver's license office. One requirement to establish SD residency and
get a license is to prove you spent one night in SD in the last year. We had that, along with the receipt from the
campground in Brandon. 2 problems with that - it only had my name on
it, not Vicky's, and it had our Arizona
address on it. The person at the DL
center told us exactly what to do - I called the campground and got them to
email me 2 receipts, each with the correct address and one in each of our
names. Then we drove to a Fedex office
where the guy kindly printed the receipts from our email and didn't even charge
us. Back to the office and in less than
an hour we were both bona fide residents of SD, carrying drivers licenses and
registered to vote.
We celebrated by stocking up on supplies and returning to
the campground for a campfire dinner.
Thursday we played tourist.
Spent the afternoon at the Great Plains Zoo. The snow leopard slept through our visit, but
the Amur tiger did come out and pace for us.
The zoo is very proud of its Japanese macaques or snow monkeys.
We were impressed with the zoo, which clearly takes care of
its animals, and which is part of the Species Survival Plan (like the Phoenix
Zoo) dedicated to saving threatened and endangered species. A surprising adjunct, however, is the
Delbridge Museum of Natural History which has a collection of 150 stuffed
animals, all shot and killed by a former Sioux Falls businessman. Not what you would expect from an institution
dedicated to saving animals from extinction, but it was very tastefully done,
with the animals arranged in dioramas representing different habitats, along
with explanations of the species. It's a
good way to introduce people to species that are not in the zoo's living
collection, and nice to know that these animals, who died for no reason, are
now used to educate people about the need to protect, not kill, animals.
We then visited
the waterfalls that give the city its name.
The Big Sioux river flows the
city
center over a series of cataracts, which are surrounded by a park. They're very
picturesque
but don't think Niagara.
The park also houses the remains of a mill built in the 19th
Century to utilize water and wheat. It
was never successful and burned down in 1959.
We then went to a laundromat and ended the day with individual
pizzas in a restaurant across the road from our "home".
Friday began with a visit to Wells Fargo to open a bank
account. They have branches in more
states than any other bank and our own bank has none in South
Dakota. We
then returned to the county office and got our plates for the RV, after which
we investigated the pedestrian friendly downtown, having lunch in a sidewalk
cafe and browsing the shops. We left about
the time they were gearing up for their "First Friday" block
party. Vicky went to her hairdresser and
I got a haircut from an old fashioned barber across the road.
The evening forecast was for rain so we returned to the
campground and packed up our screen house (where we can enjoy the outdoors
without the mosquitoes) and the rest of our camping equipment. The rain did come, but we were ready for it.
The verdict on our 4 days in Sioux
Falls? It's a
city with a very comfortable atmosphere and friendly people, and we wouldn't
mind living there after we leave the road - EXCEPT - we know what the winter is
like!
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