Palisades State Park - Garretson, South Dakota

We took a short trip today to Palisades State Park in Garretson, South Dakota (just a few miles North of where we are).  This place is quite unusual and has some unexpected sites since the area for miles around is flat corn and soybean fields yet the park is noted for its pink/purple Sioux quartzite  rock formations.  The rock formations which are said to be 1.2 Billion years old just go on for about 1/3 of a mile and then its back to flatlands.

Scene just outside the  park

Entrance to the park

Sioux quartzite formations

Balanced Rock - hard to tess in the picture but this balanced rock is probably 50 feet tall

Bridge built in 1908 - we walked across it a couple times

Chimney Rock - probably 60+ feet tall

Donna climbing out of the gorge

Sioux Falls, South Dakota - Big Sioux State Park

Friday we moved from Myre - Big Island State Park in Albert Lea, Minnesota to Big Sioux Recreation Area in Brandon, South Dakota (right next to Sioux Falls) - about a 3 hour trip. This is a very nice campground - fairly large sites with electric hook-up. It is located on the Big Sioux River and has several hiking trails and a long paved bike trail.

Our Camp Site

We spent about 1/2 a day in Sioux Falls and saw the city's namesake falls.  Sioux Falls is a  city of about 175,000 people and what we saw of it was very nice.  The following pictures are of Falls Park.

Ruins of the Queen Bee Mill from the 1800's

Photo of the mill in its heyday

Ruins of the mill from above

Early visitors to Sioux Falls 

Donna & Darby in front of the falls

Views of the falls from the observation tower with the city of Sioux Falls in the background

Buffalo sculpture - one of the many sculptures  on the "Sculpture Walk" at the Falls Park

Myre- Big Island State Park - Albert Lea, Minnesota

Friday we moved from the Wilderness Park in Necedah, Wisconsin to Myre-Big Island Sate Park in Albert Lea, Minnesota - about a 3 hour trip.  We are here for three days and will be leaving for Sioux Falls, South Dakota tomorrow.   

Our Route From Necedah, WI to Albert Lea, MN

Our Campsite

The park has 17 miles of hiking trails through marshes, woodlands and prairie lands

The park also has a paved biking trail several miles long 

Views of Albert Lea Lake at the park

Lots of migrating birds in the park right now

View from the prairie trail

Necedah National Wildlife Refuge

Thursday we went to the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge and hiked several of their many trails.  

Entrance To The Refuge

 Visitor Center - runs on about 90% solar

Marsh looking toward the oak & pine savanna

Geese on the move

Sandhill Cranes in foreground - a flock of geese - various ducks in background

A pair of sandhill cranes

One of the observation towers overlooking the marsh

We hiked this trail but didn't see a single boghaunter

Wilderness Campground Necedah, Wisconsin - Sand Hill Wildlife Area, Cranberry Bogs, Swans

On Friday we moved from Badger Park in Peshtigo, WI to Wilderness County Park in Necedah, WI, about 3 hours Southwest of where we were.  

This park is very nice with extremely large private campsites - ours, shown below is not even one of the largest.  The park is nearly empty but even if it were full you couldn't see your neighbors.  

View of the park near the office and beach.

The park is located on Petenwell Lake which covers 36 square miles - the second largest lake in Wisconsin.  This is one of the two beaches at the park - the green on the shore is from algae blooms in the lake that are quite bad this year.

Lots of hiking trails along the shore and through the woods

Sunday was in the low 90's and too hot for hiking so we drove to Sand Hill State Wildlife Area which has a 14 mile, one way, gated auto road through it.  On the way there we passed miles of cranberry bogs. The soil in this area of Wisconsin is ideally suited for cranberries.  This picture is of an Ocean Spray bog  and shows the floating berries.

It was midday and hot so we didn't see a lot of wildlife at the wildlife area - they do have a small herd of American bison (American buffalo) but we didn't see them - we are going to go back on  a cooler day this week when we can do some hiking and we hope to see them then.  We did almost hit a deer, or it almost hit us - I was only going about 10 miles an hour and had to slam on my brakes so he wouldn't hit us.

View of one of the many marshes in the wildlife area 

Whistling Swans

Sand Hill Cranes

Whistling Swans