Amy's Creative Pursuits

Wednesday, April 30, 2025

Falls Park: A Waterfall in the City of Sioux Falls South Dakota

This is the final post of a travel series to Yellowstone and the Grand Teton National Parks. If you'd like to start at the beginning, go HERE!

Well folks, we have finally reached the end of my fall travel series out west. We drove over 1,000 miles to see Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Parks, and we saw lots of cute western towns and sites there and back. One of the places we stopped on our return trip was Falls Park. This is just a short jaunt off the highway, and a really fun place to stretch your legs.

I was absolutely stunned by this place. I have never seen a waterfall system in the middle of a city before. At first I thought it was all man-made as it looked too perfect to be real, but hubby laughed and said "Nope, all the waterfalls are natural". However they did add paths, bridges, and viewing platforms to enjoy the falls.

Did you ever see a waterfall with buildings in the background before? I sure haven't.

See the people on the rocks? A fun thing about this place is you can step off the path and walk all around and above the falls.

Last spring we had so much rain that this place really got flooded and destroyed. When it was filled with water, it was barely recognizable. When we arrived in the falls, you could still see the damage done by the floods, and they were still working on fixing paths and viewing platforms. You can see the historic flooding in the video below.

Falls Park is a public park in north central Sioux Falls, South Dakota, surrounding the city's waterfalls. The park includes a cafe, an observation tower, and the remains of an old mill. The park comprises over 128 acres just north of downtown, along the Big Sioux River.

An average of 7,400 gallons of water drop 100 feet over the course of the falls each second.

Pictured below is the bridge and the Falls Overlook Cafe.

This is the Queen Bee Mill. You can read all about it on the plaque photo.

Some interesting history of the falls:

The waterfowl were enjoying the falls as much as the people were!

There is an observation tower that you can go up inside of to get an aerial view of the falls. It is free, and there is a gift shop inside too!

It's amazing isn't it? Can you believe this right in the heart of town? I sure couldn't! Be sure to check it out if you're ever driving out west.

Here are a couple of short videos of the falls so you can see the water in action.

And that concludes my final post of our fall adventure out west. For the next few travel posts I'll be sharing some short staycations we took over the winter, and then I'll begin a new travel series! We just returned home from a trip out east to see Mt. Vernon (George Washington's home), and Colonial Williamsburg, Yorktown, and Jamestown. I can't wait to tell you all about it! Until then,

Have A Great Day! Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

For more information on our trip out west, please check out these posts:

YELLOWSTONE:

Old Faithful

The Grand Prismatic Spring

Firehole Canyon Drive

Fountain Paint Pot, Lake Hotel and Cabins, and Hayden Valley

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

The Yellowstone Caldera, Tower Fall, Calcite Springs, & the Roosevelt Arch

Mammoth Hot Springs

The Golden Gate of Yellowstone, Mud Volcanos and the Fishing Bridge

Nearby Western Towns Not To Be Missed:

The Grand Tetons:

Mormon Row, Craig Thomas Visitor Center, and Jenny Lake

Mt. Moran, Signal Mountain, Chapel of the Sacred Heart, Jackson Lake Dam, Jackson Lake Lodge, Oxbow Bend, Elk Ranch Flats, and Snake River

The Buffalo Bill Dam

Wednesday, April 23, 2025

Wall, South Dakota

This is part fifteen of a travel series to Yellowstone and the Grand Teton National Parks. If you'd like to start at the beginning, go HERE!

If you are driving out west from the east, you will most likely to pass through Wall South Dakota. Because I have been out west before, I have written about Wall in 2019 in THIS POST; so I'm not going to go into all the details that were in that original post. If you're interested in hearing more, check it out!

Wall is not only the gateway to the Badlands, and all destinations west, but it is a great spot to spend the night, get some eats, and stretch your legs.

We spent the night in Wall on the way home from Yellowstone. Below is a panoramic view of the main shopping street.

The street is so vacant because it was about 7:00 am on a Sunday morning. We wanted to get a head start on our last leg home, so we arrived at a restaurant that was serving breakfast before it even opened. It gave me some time to get some unobstructed views of the cute downtown buildings because normally this area is so crowded with cars, tourist buses, and buildings it is hard to get a descent photograph.

The Wall Drug and Cafe is the most famous part of Wall known for their "Free Ice Water" and 5 cent coffee. We were bummed we couldn't eat breakfast there because they didn't open till 8:00.

The main reason I wanted to do a second post on Wall is because they have a new attraction I really wanted to share: A GIANT JACKALOPE!

The Jackalope is a mythical animal of North American Folklore described as a jack rabbit with antelope horns. You can find Jackalopes for sale all over in gift shops across the west.

The 42 foot tall Jackalope was built in 2022 by chainsaw bros Jarret and Jordan Dahl. They built it to attract customers to their chainsaw shop, and by golly, it sure does.

For a small fee, you can go up inside the Jackalope and get great views of the town of Wall, but the inside, is the real treat! The interior is filled with chain saw carving wonders and pictures of the old west.

There are 71 "wood spirits" carved into the support beams and railings. According to the bros "some were hidden pretty good".

We loved the twisted wood used for the staircase.

This is the door leading to the balcony. Isn't it incredible?

My husband always asks me to wave when he's photographing me or taking a video. So silly. Oh, and we went to the Jackalope right after dinner and had leftovers, that's why I'm holding a styrofoam carton.

You would think something so intricate would have taken forever to complete. Nope, the bros completed it in 21 days. I have no idea how they did it. They used 60,000 nails and 3,000 different pieces of wood.

Here is a video we made for the grandkids showing us walking through the Jackalope.

If you're ever swinging through Wall on your way out west, be sure to stop by and check out the Jackalope!

Have A Great Day! Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

For more information on our trip out west, please check out these posts:

YELLOWSTONE:

Old Faithful

The Grand Prismatic Spring

Firehole Canyon Drive

Fountain Paint Pot, Lake Hotel and Cabins, and Hayden Valley

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

The Yellowstone Caldera, Tower Fall, Calcite Springs, & the Roosevelt Arch

Mammoth Hot Springs

The Golden Gate of Yellowstone, Mud Volcanos and the Fishing Bridge

Nearby Western Towns Not To Be Missed:

Jackson Hole Wyoming

Cody, Wyoming

Buffalo, Wyoming

The Grand Tetons:

Mormon Row, Craig Thomas Visitor Center, and Jenny Lake

Mt. Moran, Signal Mountain, Chapel of the Sacred Heart, Jackson Lake Dam, Jackson Lake Lodge, Oxbow Bend, Elk Ranch Flats, and Snake River

The Buffalo Bill Dam

Thursday, April 17, 2025

How To Wear Spring Graphic Tees with Ageless Style

Ageless Style is a monthly style challenge and link up for women of all ages. Each month we pick a different theme and style an outfit based on that theme. This month's theme is "Spring Graphic Tees" and was picked by Leslie.

Spring is really trying to make its way to Wisconsin, but Mother Nature seems to be fighting her every step of the way. I do see bulbs popping out of the ground now, but the grass is still brown and temps vary from the 30's to 50's with a surprise 60 degree day now and then. With these fluctuations in temperatures, dressing in layers is essential and using a cute graphic spring tee as your base layer is one way of welcoming spring even when the weather says something else.

My spring graphic tee not only has a spring graphic on it (butterflies) but is also a spring color. I paired my graphic tee with a white denim jacket because of course, it was chilly outside; too chilly to just wear a t-shirt.

I wore my t-shit with a long denim skirt to dress it up a bit. I'm not the type of gal who wears t-shirts out in public much, and when I do, I tend to dress them up. I added a white belt to pull out the white butterfly graphic, and I wore neutral, comfy athletic sandals.