Sioux Falls, SD to Kansas City, Missouri

After a filling breakfast and a quick swim for Lu, we were rolling by shortly after 10. First stop - we went into Sioux Falls to check out the Falls Park. This is a very pretty park in the middle of their downtown. Pretty landscape with the pink quartzite rock and the falls of the Big Sioux.

Welcome to Falls Park

We made a quick drive through of Sioux City. Looked pretty rough, didn't like it and kept going. Not rough in a scary, bad way .. just not pretty. Reminded me of Keewatin vs Kenora.

Heading south on I-29, we ran into some more construction today, which seems to be pretty common all along for short stretches at a time. Have to slow down to about 100km/h from 120 for over a bridge, or a 1/4 mile, so no big deal.

However, we did run into a couple detours before and after Omaha, Nebraska / Council Bluffs, Missouri which ate up some of our travelling time. The first detour took us off I-29 at Exit 71, east on highway 680, then southwest on highway 80.

An upside of these detours was seeing some of the countryside. There are lots of rolling hills (Odessa Hills) in this area, and A LOT of corn fields. It is unbelievable how much corn is being grown in some of these states. As we got closer to Omaha, we started to see a crop other than corn .. but not sure what it is. My guess is chives. But will have to do some research on that.

Also in this area, saw of the wind mills like there are around St.Leon/Somerset back home. We had seen some in South Dakota the other day, but they started appearing again once the countryside got hilly.

A quick stop in Council Bluffs for fuel and a quick bite at Taco Bell. Then a quick drive through Omaha downtown. They have a pretty cool display with sculptures of people and horse-drawn carriages, and prairie grasses in a park setting in the middle of downtown. Being Sunday afternoon, downtown was pretty quiet, but regardless, it's amazing how quickly you can get out of a US city centre and cruising on the interstate.

We continued south from Omaha, hitting are second detour of the day. Turns out the detours are a result of some crazy flooding on the Missouri River. The lady at the gas station in Council Bluffs had said the interstate had been closed there since Father's Day in June. This detour took ous down Highwy 275 from Exit 35, and we couldn't get back on I-29 till highway 136 in Missouri.

The rest of the drive south to Kansas City was pretty uneventful. We made a 10 minute detour in St Joseph to view Jesse James' house (house he was shot and killed in), and made it to Kansas City by about 8:30. We drove into the city. Apparently it's smaller than Winnipeg (only 441,545 vs ~ 600,000), but this place is massive and overwhelming, with the all the roads not having a clue where we were going. Kansas City even has 2 airports. One on the north side, and 1 right in the middle of the city. Also very confusing, that the city is actually in 2 states. I believe anything we saw was all on the Missouri side. I always thought Kansas City was in Kansas (only) ... wouldn't that seem to make sense?

We scoped out a hotel near the airport (the north one, KCI) ... choosing the Microtel.

Before retiring for the night, we drove down the interstate a couple exits in search of grub. We found an Applebee's to serve this purpose. The restaurant had Extreme Bingo happening ... pretty cool , but very loud.. they were playing a TV show round when we arrived. They played tv show themes instead of calling numbers. Pretty neat!

Onward to Memphis today.