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Thursday, July 7, 2022
We watched the Wimbledon Women’s Semifinals before departing for Sioux City, IA. We had originally planned to go to Sioux Falls, SD but couldn’t find a hotel for under $200.00 per night, so we decided to go an extra 1.5 hours to Sioux City, IA, instead. Most of the drive was due East on I-90, which was a very long, straight, boring road. The drive time was 6.5 hours.
Friday, July 8, 2022
Sioux City has a lot of Lewis and Clark related things to do. We started off by going to the Chris Larsen Park where the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center can be found. Outside in the garden there were two sets of sculptures. One, permanent, had traditional bronze sculptures of indigenous animals, and a large scale sculpture featuring William Clark, Captain Meriwether Lewis, and Lewis’ faithful Newfoundland dog named Seaman, who accompanied them on the expedition.
The other sculptures, from a traveling exhibition, were more whimsical. They depicted mostly dinosaurs and were made from odds and ends. The animals were “Scrapasaurs” by artist Dale Lewis. They were very amusing.
The first building we went into was the Betty Strong Encounter Center. Its mission is to preserve the area’s history. Admission is free. It took about 15 minutes to walk through the entire building. There was very little of interest.
We entered the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center through a connecting door. Admission is also free. Surprisingly there was little information on the mission itself. We found displays showing equipment that would have been used on the expedition and information on some of the natives that they would have met.
From there we walked across the park to the Sergeant Floyd River Museum. Sergeant Floyd was the only member of the Lewis and Clark expedition to die during the adventure. The museum is a river boat that was commissioned by the US military to monitor activities on the Missouri River. When the boat was decommissioned locals saved it from destruction and made it into a museum. Admission is free.
The bottom level of the boat’s space is mostly used as a gift shop. The second level tells the history of the area in terms of commerce on the river. The top floor is the bridge. You can play with the controls and ring the ship’s bell if you like (I did).
Our next stop was Palmer’s Olde Tyme Candy Shoppe. Palmer’s is well known to us although but we didn’t realize that they were based in Sioux City. Every Christmas we get Palmer’s chocolate bells. They are delicious.
The shop contains all of the products that Palmer’s makes plus some others from other well known candy companies. Their main factory is a few blocks away and is over three football fields in length. Since the bells are only available during the Christmas season we purchased some milk chocolate stars and some opera candies (soft centers enrobed in milk chocolate). They didn’t last long.
Our last stop of the day was at the Sergeant Floyd Monument. Sergeant Floyd died of bilious colic and was buried in Sioux City near the river on a small hill that became known as Floyd’s Bluff. Because of flooding the grave was uncovered and moved several times. Eventually, in 1901, money was raised for a new, permanent resting place. A large, white, 100 foot tall, sandstone obelisk was erected over his grave. It’s a wonderful monument that can be seen from many parts of the city.
Saturday, July 9, 2022
Since we had done so much the previous day there was just one more item on our list of things to do. We went to see Trinity Heights. The main attraction was said to be a life sized wood carving of DaVinci’s Last Supper. It turned out that there was quite a bit more to see than that.
We parked and walked into a sculpture garden. A curved paved path lead to numerous stations with sculptures of famous biblical characters. The highlight was a huge, 30 foot tall sculpture entitled The Immaculate Heart of Mary, Queen of Peace by Dale Lamphere.
There were two buildings on either side of the parking lot. We went into the gift shop. There was a nice selection of Christian books and statues for sale. The other building contained a large room with sculptures by Jerry Traufler. One was a basswood carving of Jesus tied to a marble block entitled Scourged. The other was a life sized carving of the last supper. There was a chapel next door that contained carvings of the 12 stations of the cross. It also contained several display cases containing holy relics.
We found another, similar sculpture garden on the other side of the parking lot. The highlight was another 30 foot stainless steel sculpture, except this time it was of Jesus. The area around the sculpture was designated as an outdoor chapel.