Heading West (the southern route)

We left Woodland Trails on September 19th, with our ultimate destination of Yuma, Arizona, around October 22nd. Meanwhile we have several stops along the way to visit friends, relatives, and to do a little ancestor hunting.

Our first stop was in Sioux Falls, SD, for a night and took in the falls along the Big Sioux river in Falls Park. This is a beautifully maintained park.  Here again was the remains of a very large flour mill which had burned to the ground.  The mill was erected along with a water turbine for power however the owner was a bit overly optimistic and it failed after a short time.  The park features a tall viewing tower, giving a panoramic aerial view of the remains of the mill, the falls, and the city nearby.

We had nice, warm weather on the next leg of the trip to Valentine, Nebraska.  Two years ago we traveled south through Nebraska and saw lots of fields with crops. This time it was different.  The trip to Valentine went through beautiful, hilly terrain as we crossed the Missouri river.  To us it was reminiscent of driving through the state of Missouri.  We stopped along an overlook to take in the view and grab some lunch.

 

 

 

After a stormy night, the day dawned bright and sunny as we continued on to the town of Gothenburg, NE.  This was to be our HQ for the next few days as we explored Broken Bow and Oconto, the one-time center of much of Mary’s paternal ancestors.

Getting there allowed us to travel through the Nebraska sand hills.  This is the area you may have read about where early settlers built homes from sod because there were no trees, literally.  Even though the landscape is a bit barren, there is still a lot of beauty in it to see.  It’s strange driving for many miles, seeing nothing more than sand hills and a few scattered head of cattle, then all of a sudden seeing a town.

Tomorrow we go to Broken Bow to meet with folks from the Custer County Historical Museum.