Falls Park in Sioux Falls is nice. Interesting natural stone formations around a small river, railroad bridge, and grassy areas. Our then-4-year-old loved it.
Good family-run Thai/Vietnamese restaurant in a house, about a mile from the park.
The Badlands are well worth the time. If you are into archeology and have lots of time Mitchell has a nice but small museum of a Indian village from c900-1000. Otherwise I90 between Sioux Hills and the Black Hills is pretty damn boring and I am a native of SD.
OK, first, The Iowa 80 Truck Stoppe isn’t just the largest truck stop, it also has a truck history museum (not in the same building). If you like old trucks, it is pretty neat. Just went there last week. The truck stop itself has this HUGE area to buy custom stuff for your rig, so if you find large trucks fascinating, you’ll find it interesting. If you don’t, it’s just a large specialty store full of nothing particularly useful.
The SAC museum is great. If you like planes, it is a must-see. It has one of only 5 B-36 on display. It has an SR-71, and tons of great planes in the great plains.
The Arch-thingy mentioned above in Kearney is nice, and instructive, but is a bit pricey for what you get. Still, worth a stop if you want to spend a little.
Mt Rushmore, always a good stop. Also, Wind Cave is nice. As are the Badlands. And, Ellsworth AFB has another great museum.
Wall Drug, as mentioned, is fun. As is the Pioneer Auto Museum (not to be confused with the Pioneer Village, in Nebraska).
SD also has the South Dakota tractor Museum. A nice stop, if you like that sort of thing.
Iowa, off the beaten path, also has the National Farm Toy Museum in Dyersville, (near the Field of Dreams). Spillville IA has the Bily Clocks and Antonin Dvorak Exhibit. A nice small museum.
Western IA has the Grotto, briefly shown in The Straight Story. It is way cooler than it appears in the movie, and worth a look if you’re in the neighborhood, even if you aren’t religious.
Just across the river from Omaha is Council Bluffs, IA, which has the interesting Squirrel Cage Prison.
Then, just up I-29, The National Music Museum in Vermillion, SD is interesting, and would seem to be on your route.
And, on a teensy weensy ground cart under a wing of the B-36, it has one of only two (ever, in all existence) XF-85 Goblin parasite fighters, which was going to solve SAC’s escort fighter problem. :rolleyes: A great testimony to “WTF were they thinking” in the arms race.
Sioux Hills?
When you come back east via I90 in South Dakota:
[ul]
[li]Wall Drug[/li][li]Badlands National Park[/li][li]Minuteman Missile National Historic Site (east entrance to Badlands NP)[/li][li]At Chamberlain SD, get off of I90 and take the business route. Take a picture of the big bison on the west side of the river[/li][li]Mitchell Corn Palace[/li][/ul]
From Mitchell to the Mississippi River is drowsy boring. Stay awake.
Which is in my hometown of Kimball.
It’s not. Unless you like being in the middle of several thousand sweaty tourists looking at Chinese-made crap, and eating bad food, I’d avoid it like death. Opt instead for Rushmore and The Badlands. There’s also a mothballed Minuteman missile silo you can tour along the way.
One of my co-workers gave me the same advice about Wall’s at the end of the day yesterday.
It’s Wall Drug because it’s in the town of Wall. It is not Wall’s or Wall Drugs.
I’m seeing a bunch of stuff listed for Bill Cody in Cody, WY, but nothing in Iowa.
Another co-worker suggested Evans Plunge in Hot Springs, SD. Anyone familiar with it?
http://buffalobillmuseumleclaire.com/
Apparently he was born there or something.
It’s quite surprising that I have counted up 21 suggested sites, and more than half are in South Dakota.
And I don’t think anyone has mentioned the Chief Crazy Horse Memorial yet!
I’ve enjoyed Wall Drug, so YMMV.
And you don’t think you’ll see several thousand sweaty tourists at Mt Rushmore? That the food there is any better? About the only thing that is different is that the heads aren’t Chinese made.
Yeah, Rushmore has become a giant parking lot. It’s still cool to see a sculpture of that size, though.
In Deadwood, you can visit the cemetery and see where Bill Hickok, Seth Bullock and Calamity Jane are buried. The downtown is mostly bars and other touristy places trying to play on the whole wild west theme. I seem to remember a museum that wasn’t bad.
The only thing I remember about Wall Drug is the 5-cent cup of coffee and the Ukrainian summer-work-visa cashiers who can’t speak English.