Spent the night in Burwell, NE, without Wifi except those times I tethered the phone to the computer to check email. Was running out of data on my phone plan for the month though. Wasn’t much to warrant staying in Burwell another night anyway, so off I headed to Sioux Falls.
Pretty neat picture of the road. Much of the trip was through countryside like this.
And here’s the Missouri River. I dropped the camera and wasn’t going to dive for it while driving so this is the only shot I got. Didn’t see an appropriate place to pull over either. 
Interesting countryside devoid of mountains. Four hours travel put me in Sioux Falls around 2 pm so plenty of daylight left after signing in and getting all set up. My first assigned spot was just too pitched to get level, plus the approach road was too steep to unhook the car, so back to the office to get reassigned to a better spot. Here we are, this one will do nicely. Note the leafless trees.
And my view from the front windows. Not bad. It’s late April so not too crowded. The town is shaking off the cold winter coat and welcoming the warm sunshine. People in town are in a pretty good mood now that winter is over. 
I had around 3 weeks to kill before my appointment at the Winnebago Factory Service Center so my plan was to stay here 2 weeks, go visit my daughter in Minneapolis for a week, and then head on down to Forest City right on time. While here in Sioux Falls I also intended to change my vehicle registrations from Oregon to SD, get a replacement drivers license since mine was set to expire, get a new mail drop here in town, and visit the VA hospital to check it out while I’m here. Turned out I needed a bridge supply for one of my meds anyway and got it at the hospital with no problem at all. Very different from when I tried to do that at the Portland hospital when I couldn’t get an appointment at the Gresham VA Clinic (they were moving into a new facility). The hospital wouldn’t do it without making me wait for a very busy doctor to examine me first for some reason. They couldn’t take the Gresham Clinic’s word for it??? There were tons of vets in the waiting room with real problems so I just told the nurse to forget it, I’ll get my meds somewhere else or do without rather than block some poor guy with real problems. Including blocking the guy talking about suicide just a couple feet away from me. That sure caused a staff scramble. (Several days later, my clinic called me and said that the hospital had called them on my behalf about the meds so they had me come in and get a bridge supply).
But here at the Sioux Falls VA hospital, grabbed a number at the pharmacy, 15 minutes later told them what I needed, they called my pharmacy of record in Boise, and boom, I had a 7 day supply.
After taking care of that, headed downtown Sioux Falls just to have a look around. The core is getting spruced up or had in the recent past. While wandering, found this interesting ‘Diner’.
Really enjoyed the ambiance so sat at the counter and had a nice bowl of soup. Which I didn’t care for. But it cost a lot so it had that going for it.
And this is across the street from the diner…downtown Sioux Falls. This is the old business core and it’s making a comeback. Some of these buildings were constructed in the 1880’s. Several upscale businesses here in this area.
And then on the trip back to the RV park, scouted out these older hill top homes just 5-10 blocks from downtown. This would have been ‘Nob Hill’ back in the day. There’s an entire street lined with these refurbished old mansions. 
Pretty nice homes.
Then I spotted this museum and decided to stop in.
Seems as though the Senator was a collector of artifacts and antiques. Most of this stuff was purchased by him for his personal collection. 
This collection is undoubtedly worth millions. I wanted to ask a question or two of the young curator there but every time I’d passed her desk, she was deep in conversation on her cell phone or the museum phone. Eventually, just as I was getting ready to leave, she came up for air, found me off wandering around, and mentioned that I was in an area of the museum that was closed to visitors. Well, gee, too bad I missed the sign.
It was interesting to see how a Senator lived back at the turn of the last century. I enjoyed visiting his home and getting a look at his collection. And seeing how he and his family lived in this mansion.
So that’s a first look at Sioux Falls and we have more to cover…next time. An actual visit to the falls will be the order of the day. Don’t want to miss that, and thanks for reading!
Out of curiosity, what meds are you on, and for what? I may need this info, being related and such, should I live as long as yourself, good sir, dad.
I take Hydrochlorothiazide, 25mg, which I cut in half and take one half tablet every morning. It lowers the blood pressure that Morgans are prone to have. High blood pressure shows up as an excess of strokes which the males in the Mongan line have been known to exhibit. When I get a bottle of 100 in Mexico, they are under $5 USD. A blood pressure monitor is available on Amazon for only $10 and it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to get one yourself. Monitor your BP for a year, if it stays normal all year, you probably don’t need any meds.
I also take Terazosin HCL 10mg. It’s a diuretic basically and has the effect of shrinking my prostate I guess? Fairly expensive but I only have to pay the co-pay. But I’m at the limit of dosage after 3 years using it and it’s been getting more uncomfortable having to get up several times per night to urinate. Which means I may be looking at having the surgery. Unless I can stand another year of discomfort and early mornings, like 4:30am.
Not that my condition is as bad as numerous other conditions, but it is my condition so I’m trying to decide whether to go under the knife or tough it out. Stupid evolution, putting a growing fist around a pliable tube.
I doubt you’ll have to worry about your prostate shrinking.
Check out providenceoregon.org/HDRBrachy. Dr. Bader is the radiation oncologist that was going to do the treatment of my brain tumor before it was decided to remove it surgically last year. He is pretty much up on state of the art technique, and won’t recommend radiation therapy if there are better options. Some patients are just afraid of radiation, even though today’s approaches are safer and more accurate than even a decade ago.
Thanks for the info but it looks like you read more into my post and comment than I expected. I don’t need an oncologist at present. I have a swelling prostate which is very common for men my age. The surgery that may be needed someday has it’s drawbacks but it does work. But the cure is sometimes worse than the disease leaving the patient worse off than before. Which is why I’m fairly cautious about it and am trying to delay it as long as possible, hoping the surgical technique has some advances before I get it. And it’s the reason I moved to the Burns area so my VA hospital is the Boise hospital. It was a 5-star until last year when it dropped to a 4-star. Not a good sign, but it’s still head and shoulders over most VA hospitals.
Yup, I got that your situation was benign. But so was my tumor. That didn’t mean radiation wasn’t an option, as had mine remained small, and not pressed against a critical nerve, Dr. Bader’s Gamma Knife procedure would’ve been vastly preferable to the months and years of recuperation and readjustment I’m now going through. I just waited too long, trying to get my wife’s medical issues resolved first.
In your case, I agree that today’s best technique is to watch and manage, in lieu of immediate surgery.
A gamma knife huh? That sounds interesting. Maybe I’ll do some studying on it over the next year. Might not be able to get something sophisticated like that at the VA though.
“Really enjoyed the ambiance so sat at the counter and had a nice bowl of soup. Which I didn’t care for. But it cost a lot so it had that going for it.” — I see where your daughter gets her writing wit from!
This is the first blog post of yours that I’ve read and am looking forward to working my way backwards in your RV-ing journey. My parents spent a good 15 years or so RV-ing and I really wish they had documented their travels.
I enjoyed your photos of the old houses and the Senator’s house/museum the most in this post.
Thank you for your service, Sir, and Safe Travels!
Thank you very much, Jinjer. Hope you enjoy the blog.
An interesting note re. Nebraska’s trees:
When we were traveling across from Colorado on the southern freeway toward Omaha and my father’s childhood places of Tekamah and Decatur, we made many stops. Like the center of the nation’s rails at North Platte, Ft. Kearney and Kearney, Aurora, and numerous other great towns, large and small. Somewhere during those forays we were made aware that Nebraska was originally nearly devoid of trees! Hard to believe that now. Go into any town and it’s obvious Nebraskans love their trees. Apparently the pioneers planted them all because there weren’t any when they got there.
It was this revelation that caused the proverbial light bulb to go on over my head, and I realized why I was born and raised in Oregon on a 20 acre farm that had over 312 trees of various kinds… Dad came to Oregon as a teenager from the banks of the Missouri where he was surrounded by tons of trees. Not until our 6000 mile, 6 month motorhome trip in 2012 did it occur to me where his love of trees came from, and why a year before I came along he bought that farm. It was one of those precious realizations we so rarely experience in life.
Nothing like traveling in your father’s footsteps to make you nostalgic, is there?