The War by Ken Burns and Luverne Minnesota

The Ken Burns series on PBS, "The War", told the stories of four soldiers in WWII. The series was seven episodes and a great series. Quentin Aanenson was a pilot from Luverne MN. I decided to drive to Luverne on Wednesday since it was only 35 miles east of Sioux Falls. When I see a documentary or read a book about a place, I like to see it in person. Quentin died in 2008 but the museum in town featured him in a video and the displays.

https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-war/four-towns/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quentin_C._Aanenson

Downtown Luverne. The War showed Luvernen and it looked about the 
same but with 1940's cars and trucks.

The museum.

Quentin Aanenson

German soldier.

Japanese soldier.

The good old Jeep. I like Jeeps.

Sioux Falls SD

 Sioux Falls is located at the southeast border of South Dakota and near the border with Minnesota.  The city is famous for it's water falls in the city. The Big Sioux River flows through the city where they have a large city park around the falls. We made that trip yesterday and the weather was great, temperature about 85 and low humidity.

https://www.siouxfalls.org/contactus/city/history

The area has quartzite bedrock, the hard pink stone seen here.
Highways in the area have a pink color due to this stone used in the asphalt.

There was a large grain mill located to the right, walls still remain.
It was powered by a water driven turbine from the river water.
I am standing where the water gatehouse was located.
The supports on the ground held a large pipe
that routed water to the turbine house. You can see the
pipe entrance at the bottom of that small structure.

The water turbine powered the mill located on the hill above the turbine. 

Our "Home" in Emery SD

We stopped in at our "home address" to pick up our mail and a package. That saved us some postage. It's been five years since we were in Emery. It all looks the same.

411 North 6th Street, Emery SD.
Our mail forwarding service is in an attached building behind the garage.
There are about 2400 people "living" here 😉

Arriving in Emery, the town's grain silo coming into view.

Alexandria SD, the Hanson County seat. This is the courthouse annex.
We registered our vehicles here five years ago.

This is how they find fire hydrants in the winter as long as the
snow is less than six feet deep!

This is all you see for miles in South Dakota.

Dakota Sunsets RV Park

 We arrived here on Saturday evening. This is a very quiet park, out in the country 45 miles west of Sioux Falls one mile from I-90. The photos below show why the park is named Dakota Sunsets. 

When I started to disconnect our Jeep Cherokee from the tow bar, it had a dead/bad battery (five years old). Jump starting did not work because the electronics in the car had lost it's mind or so it seemed. A nice neighbor took me to Mitchell for not just any battery but a $244.00 battery made for this car. No more $79.00 batteries for our car. It would still not run so on Sunday I located my cheap plugin code reader. I cleared out error codes and it finally started and seems OK again. That avoided a trip to a Jeep dealer in Mitchell.

Staying here for six days, heading to the Badlands on Friday.

This car was almost on fire (by me) when it got stupid after the dead
battery. It acted similar to this in North Carolina three years ago.
That time it went to a dealer for about eight days.
Now I know how to fix it myself.

The park is not large, it has about sixty four sites.

A regular sunset west of the park.

A storm is heading our way. It moved south of us.

Hundreds of grain cars set on a railroad siding, waiting for fall harvest.

I have never seen this fuel but South Dakota is mostly farm fields
raising grain. That is 70% ethanol on the left, 55% on the right pump.
Not in my car!

Nebraska City Nebraska

 We avoided the severe storms around Kansas City by leaving Joplin Missouri at daylight today. The storms last night had plenty of hail, not something we want to be in. This afternoon, we crossed into Iowa then turned left to cross into Nebraska where we are in Nebraska City for the night. Storms are north of Omaha and south at Kansas City and we hope they will stay away from us. Next stop will be Salem South Dakota on Saturday, about 350 miles north.

Iowa State line on I-29.

Nebraska City is located at the white dot.

Joplin Missouri

 We traveled west on I-40 from Little Rock Arkansas then north on I-49 to Joplin Missouri, about 325 miles. There are some large storms north of us around Kansas City so we are holding here tonight and will make our decision to move on in the early morning. If we leave at daylight we may be able to drive far enough north to get past the storms that will form again tomorrow afternoon. We will decide that about 5 am tomorrow morning. We need to make it north of Omaha Nebraska to get past the storms, preferably to Sioux City Iowa. 

I-49 was a nice drive today. It goes straight north, just west of the Ozark Mountains.

Mary was using her iPhone camera.

Red Bay & Little Rock

 Our coolant overflow tank on our Cummins engine needed replacement due to some cracks forming in the tank. We had Bay Diesel do that work. Other than that, no other issues to be repaired in Red Bay, Alabama. We left Red Bay on Sunday and drove the 320 miles to Little Rock Arkansas. We are at the Maumell Corp of Engineers park on the Arkansas River for four days. This is a nice COE park and we had been here on a vacation trip in 2013. Our site electric power is only 30 amps (50 amps is preferred) so staying cool yesterday was a problem in the 95 degree humid weather. Today a storm just went through and cooled thing down in the 70's. 

We visited the Clinton Library on the 2013 trip. It's closed for Covid-19 and due to open July 1st. The photos below were taken in 2013. We will head to Joplin Missouri on Thursday for one night then Nebraska City for another overnight stay. We will be in South Dakota on Satarday.

Crossing the state line on I-65 South, the first thing you see is a NASA rocket standing at the rest park. Huntsville is the home of Redstone Arsenal and the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. We pass it on every trip south by I-65.

Tiffin motorhomes waiting for factory service.
This is the only place we go for service.

There are some 200 new motorhomes sitting around that need parts to
finish them. The parts shortage is a big problem for new units and for us
that may need a repair part.

Maumell COE campground on the Arkansas River.

William J. Clinton Library we visited in 2013.

Our hair color has changed since 2013. Bill was not in the oval office that day.

                       

Our West Trip Starts

 We finally left Southeast Indiana to start our summer trip. Our first stop is Nashville TN, not exactly west, yet. We are here for the weekend then heading to Red Bay Alabama for eight days to have a coolant tank replaced on the radiator. The Freightliner shop there works mostly on motorhomes so they know the best way to replace it. The rear engine diesel can be a pain to work on. From there we will be in Little Rock Arkansas for three days, then we head straight north to South Dakota. I will have more posts as we make our way to Glacier National Park.

We fueled up here and these photos show why. Much better than Indiana! Our sixty cents off Kroger points help on the first 35 gallons of diesel. I hope it's this "cheap" when we get to the Kroger store in Little Rock.