Westward Ho!

We planned our first vacation to drive out west. Little did we know just how much we would love this vacation. We carved about 2 weeks out of our summer for our trek to Yellowstone. We left late in the day for Ohio. Our second day quickly began with the sighting of the Sear's Tower. The kids were quite excited to see this building, even though it was only from the highway.





A front was moving in while we were moving west. We all looked for signs of tornadoes, but all we saw were some very cool clouds and lots of wind.






We ate dinner at this wonderful restaurant in downtown Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We were a bit under dressed for the restaurant, but found a very casual table outside that allowed us to view the beautiful downtown. After what ended up to be one of the best meals of our trip, we strolled the downtown and viewed all of the sculptures that were to be juried.



From there we were heading back to the hotel when we saw a sign for the falls that Sioux Falls is so aptly named for. While the falls were big and loud, we were a bit disgusted by the color of the water. Recent rains surely had something to do with that and the large amounts of trash floating downstream. We read that the falls often look brown and that the community is doing its best to clean up the stream and surrounding park. It was a very cool place to climb over the very red rocks. Fireworks were slated for the night, but we had a long day ahead of us so we ventured back to the hotel. It was an adventure to be in new places together. All were in good spirits despite the two days of driving and one more to go.