Clear Lake, IA, Sioux Falls, SD, and East Grand Forks, MN

May 27 – June 4

That’s right folks, we legitimately visited FOUR states on this trip. Not just passed through, but actually got out of the car and saw sights, shopped, and/or ate, all in a week!

Brandy was on her way up to Minnesota for a site visit. I tagged along with her, so the day after I got back from Verona, WI, we packed up the car once more and headed north on I-35 headed for Clear Lake, IA.

Outlets of Des Moines

We knew we would be passing through Altoona on our way to Clear Lake so Brandy wanted to swing by the outlet mall just outside Des Moines. We parked headed in, stopping in at Maurice’s, Lane Bryant and the Le Creuset outlet store, where we pulled the trigger on 5.5 quart enameled cast iron Dutch oven. List price was over $400 but they were running a sale so we got it, plus a metal knob for the lid, for under $400.

That made me very happy.

Once we had our fill of the mall, we got back on the road.

Clear Lake, IA

Brandy chose an inexpensive hotel for our quick, overnight stay in Clear Lake, deciding on America’s Best Value Inn just off I-35. It was like $60 after taxes and fees, so we didn’t have high hopes from the beginning.

She put it under my name so I walked in and the whole place had an odd odor to it. To me, it wasn’t a bad odor, but off-putting, and I could see why some might say it’s a stinky smell.

The receptionist was an Eastern Indian woman who was on the phone, on speakerphone. She did not pause her conversation as I checked in, her and her phone-mate speaking what I can only assume was Hindi, during the entire process.

I took the key to our room and drove to a back door that was closer to it. We unloaded the couple of bags we’d need for our overnight stay and let ourselves into our room.

The entire place was in dire need of a refresh. A fresh coat of paint, replacing dingy carpeting, replacing the busted down overstuffed loveseats in the rooms, and the death trap office chairs in the rooms that are on the verged of collapse.

We set our stuff down and I made an order at Perkins, with which the hotel shared a parking lot. I left shortly after, went and picked up our food, took it back to the room, ate and we almost immediately went to sleep.

Hike

The next day, we quickly packed up and headed out to the lake upon which the eponymous city is situated. McIntosh Woods State Park is a park within which the lake is located so Brandy and I ventured out for a quick hike along the MacIntosh Woods Trail (which, I realize, AllTrails has spelled incorrectly.)

AllTrails has the trail listed as an easy, 1.3 mile loop trail with 49 feet of elevation gain. The trailhead departs from the parking lot at the boat ramp next to the lake, then heads north along the shoreline. It then cuts east through a series of parking lots and RV campgrounds. I had no idea that the trail would lead us through the asphalt of the parking lots, but there we were, traipsing through people’s campsites trying to get back onto the poorly marked trail.

Most of the trail is marked as an “interpretive trail”, which is fine, but parts of it were not marked at all, and the directions were not clear on AllTrails. We did a lot of doubling back trying to gain our bearings.

Once we got to the southbound part of the trail, we ultimately wound up on a sandy peninsula dipping into the waters of Clear Lake. We stopped for a bit and watched as people cruised around on their boats, and there was a man with his child on the beach playing near the water.

The Day The Music Died

On February 3, 1959, a plane carrying Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper crashed in a field in Clear Lake, IA, killing them and the pilot. Today, a huge pair of black horn rimmed classes are perched on concrete pillars memorializing the day the music died.

The site is a quick 15 minute drive from the park where Brandy and I had just hiked so we took a small detour to view the site.

After I snapped a couple of pictures, we continued up I-35 into Minnesota. We stopped in Albert Lea for gas and road snacks then got on I-90, finding ourselves at the Butterfly House & Aquarium just before 1:00.

Butterfly House & Aquarium

The Butterfly House & Aquarium in Sioux Falls, SD, is a butterfly conservatory that also houses the largest saltwater aquarium in the Dakotas. It was suggested to us by Mike, the manager at the park that we were on the road to visit in the first place.

We parked and walked in to the small lobby where we paid our $14 per person admission. I was told I couldn’t wear my baseball cap in the butterfly house so I left it on a nearby shelf during our visit.

We walked through the door into the small Discovery Center where there were a few terrariums scattered throughout the gift shop. There were displays of stick bugs and Madagascar cockroaches and some others. We followed the path through the aquarium, which was much smaller than I was expecting, but they had some interactive tide pool displays, lots of starfish, a tank full of jellyfish and other aquatic creatures swimming about.

We then passed into the actual butterfly house that was hot and humid. In hindsight, we shouldn’t have been as surprised at the conditions but we were initially taken aback.

Sure enough, the room was rife with activity. There were plenty of butterflies pitter-pattering about along with some flightless birds in fenced off pens and a couple of turtles in another pen. They also had a pond with some rather large koi swimming about.

We made the circuit quickly, trying to snap as many pictures as we could of the insects in flight. We weren’t fortunate enough to have any land on us, surmising that the deet that we had doused ourselves with before our early morning hike was deterring them.

In all, we were there for just over half an hour. The $28 for us to get in, in our opinion, was a bit high for the experience we had, however if we had small children with us, it might have been a more worth-while experience.

We were escorted into the gift shop where we tried to find a magnet to commemorate our stop in Sioux Falls, but didn’t find anything that Brandy liked so we left empty handed. I grabbed my hat on the way out and we headed up to the other attraction in Sioux Falls that we wanted to see, the Falls.

Falls Park, Sioux Falls, SD

The namesake falls in Sioux Falls are part of the larger Falls Park in Sioux Falls. We made our way in that direction, seeking a place to eat nearby. We found a cafe, Falls Overlook Cafe, within the park and decided to stop there to try it out.

As we approached the park, we were surprised that these falls were not part of a natural landscape but instead are an urban waterfall, smack dab in the middle of the city. It’s a developed area with planned natural landscaping and the brick Falls Overlook Cafe nearby.

We parked in the lot of the Cafe and walked in and were immediately turned off by the limited menu. They had a small handful of prepared wraps and salads but no made-to-order foods. We decided to bypass this eatery but elected to scope out the falls for a bit before heading out to find food.

The falls are rather wide and fall over stones with plenty of observation points above and below. We opted for one of the higher vantage points. It was very hot and humid so Brandy found shade under a tree and stayed behind while I walked out to the observation platform.

There was a pretty cool tower just behind where I was standing and plenty of people down in the lower pools. The spot I was had some people but not nearly as many. I snapped off a couple of pictures then headed back to Brandy. We went back to the car, cranked the AC and looked for a place to eat. We landed on MacKenzie River Pizza, Grill & Pub in the heart of downtown Sioux Falls. We were seated in an indoor area adjacent to the patio. They had large windows that were open to the outside and we had a nice breeze coming through as we ate. The area we were sitting in was sectioned off from the rest of the restaurant by a row of birch tree trunks, there for ambience and theming.

We perused the menu before making our choices: We started with the Cowboy Nachos and added pulled pork to them. Brandy ordered a Cobb salad and I got a small Hot Hawaiian pizza:

Sweet & smoky BBQ sauce, mozzarella, fajita chicken, smoked bacon, pineapples & jalapeños.

MacKenzie River Pizza menu

The nachos came and the portion was ENORMOUS. We could have both had this as our shared dinner and it would have been plenty. Instead, we ate as much of it as we could, then Brandy took her salad to go while I polished off the pizza.

We were initally planning on moving on from Sioux Falls after Linner, however we were both bushed and decided to just stick around town before heading out Monday morning. Brandy booked us a room at the Quality Inn & Suites Airport North. We checked in at about 3:30, I headed out to get supplies to make some drinks and we spent the rest of the evening consuming said drinks and knocking another state off of my Fucket list.

East Grand Forks, MN

The next morning, we stopped at a nearby Walmart to try and get some smarter (and cheaper) choices for road snacks. After loading up, we hit the road just after 9:30, heading north on I-29 through South Dakota and North Dakota before exiting the freeway in Grand Forks, just 80 miles shy of the Canadian border.

We exited the freeway at Gateway Dr then headed over the Red River, serving as the border between North Dakota and Minnesota. Before long, we were at a grocery store near the park where we would spend the rest of our trip. I picked up some groceries then headed into the park.

We stayed in a brand new single-wide trailer that, unfortunately, did not have an air conditioner. It was well in the 80s inside the home by the time we walked in. We knew it would be intolerable so I ran back across the border to the “nice” Walmart, in North Dakota, and got a small window air conditioner. We plugged that into the window of the bedroom where we slept. Its presence was noticed and appreciated.

I broke out the new Le Creuset Dutch oven and made a pot of soup, perfect for the nice, balmy summer day that we were experiencing in northern Minnesota.

I set up my work computer on the staged dining room table and quickly decided that wasn’t going to work for me. There was no wi-fi so I was going to have to use my phone’s hot spot, and with a data cap, I would quickly run out. I soon moved to the property’s office where the manager had a wi-fi router that I was able to connect to and finish my work week.

The remainder of the week was pretty uneventful, Brandy working with Mike, and I working from the office. Each morning, I’d head to the nearest Scooter’s coffee, which would take me in to North Dakota. On Wednesday, Brandy took Mike, his significant other and me out to a nearby Mexican restaurant for dinner.

A couple nights later, we ordered dinner from Blue Moose Bar & Grill, once more in North Dakota.

Overall, the rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. I worked every day, then went back to the trailer and tried to stay cool for the rest of the night. I watched the Dodgers on my phone as there was no TV in the trailer.

Brandy did her work from the trailer and out in the park with Mike. We finished the week like that, then, Friday night, packed up and got ready for our early morning departure Saturday.

We departed just before noon Saturday, arriving in Albert Lea, the last city in Minnesota before crossing into Iowa. We spent the night at an Econo Lodge in the town, then started the final leg of our trip at 8:00 am Sunday morning, arriving home just before noon.

Conclusion

If it seems the second half of this post felt rushed, it kind of was. I happened upon its draft on August 4, a full two months since the culmination of the trip. I tried to complete it from memory, but, as per usual, do not remember much about the trip. I used my Google Maps timeline to fill in the gaps, but otherwise you get what I have.

I do have pictures from the trip on my Photo Diary, then I will finally be finishing up my trip report from our trip to Crested Butte in June, then we’ll talk about what I’ve been up to since then, and what’s coming up.

So, in the meantime, thanks for sticking around. I know no one reads this blog any more, I doubt anyone even gets the e-mails from when I post, but, as I’ve said before, this isn’t for you. It’s for me. That’s the important thing.

Until next time!

-Phil