Hills RV Park, Plankinton, SD (Jul 1-4, 2017)
This is our last mini stop on our way to Mt. Rushmore which we are getting very anxious to finally get there. We stayed at the Hills RV park right off I-90. http://www.hills-rv.com/ Very convenient off and on. Small park but plenty of grass between the pull through slots. Has a pool but not hot tub/spa.
While in the area, we planned a day to go to Sioux Falls, SD which was approximately an hour away.
While driving to the park originally, we saw a huge bulls head on the side of the road. We investigated it and found that this was from the Porter Sculpture Park. http://portersculpturepark.com/ This park is full of “sculptures” that Wayne Porter made. Seems like Wayne has an imagination plus he told us that large horse will be arriving soon – as large as the bull. Too bad we missed that. The sculptures are eccentric for sure and all depending on your thoughts, could be good, bad or ugly. Will let you make up your mind.
We left there and went to the USS South Dakota Battleship museum and memorial in Sioux Falls. http://www.usssouthdakota.com/ While much of the ship was sold as scarp metal, they did a nice job of laying out the area in the size of the top deck and placing actual armament in the display. (The USS South Dakota Battleship was also known as Battleship X because the US Navy wanted to hide sensitive operational information from Japanese ears and eyes so the vessel would not be identified by its real name in American newspapers or radio broadcasts.)
We then went to lunch Phillips Avenue Diner. http://www.phillipsavenuediner.com/ Since it was already after 12:30, we waited for 30 minutes to get a seat. By the time we were being seated the wait time was 1 – 1.5 hours and people were waiting- even locals – because this is a great place. When we travel, we tend to look on our phone, under Google, for restaurants and usually pick one that is better than 4 stars. This was a great one. The food was good as well as the service – even though the waitress just had 3 tables seated at the same time.
We then went to Falls Park. https://visitsiouxfalls.com/things-to-do/falls-park/ “The park covers 123 acres. An average of 7,400 gallons of water drop 100 feet over the course of the Falls each second.” Please look at the link to see the big back story on these falls from Native Indians, Europeans and even as a Prison Quarry. The place is covered with quartzite. This is a popular park and you can walk all of the stones to the falls. 
We were told by a fellow American Coach rally attendee that we “had” to see the Corn Palace so we went to the Mitchell Corn Palace. http://www.cornpalace.org/ “The Corn Palace, commonly advertised as The World’s Only Corn Palace and the Mitchell Corn Palace, is a multi-purpose arena/facility. The Moorish Revival building is decorated with crop art. The murals and designs covering the building are made from corn and other grains, and a new design is constructed each year. The Corn Palace is a popular tourist destination, visited by between 200,000 and 500,000 people each year.” It is an arena so nothing really spectacular about it except the art on the outside that is made with corn and husks. The theme this year is Rock of Ages and there are murals of Willie, Elvis and others. They will update the theme during the festival in August.
Next stop Mt. Rushmore!!!
