TuzigootJournal: Sioux City

Sioux City Summary: Sights, Sites, Scenes, Song. See.

Sioux City Sue, Sioux City Sue,

Your hair is red, your eyes are blue,
I'd swap my horse and dog for you.
Sioux City Sue, Sioux City Sue,
There ain't no gal as true as my sweet Sioux City Sue.

Jeff and Valerie moved last winter from Aberdeen, SD, to Sioux City, IA. This was our first chance to visit them in their new environs. They fed, entertained, and educated us royally for several days.

Hinkle Household. Jeff, Valerie, Sissy, and Bailey

It looks like they live in the country, but Jeff's ShopKo store, located in a busy shopping center, is just over that ridge, five minutes away.

That dot on the ridge is I, picture by Jeff. Here's the shot of their house I took from over there. The pink dot on the deck is Susie.

Here's another notable house in the neighborhood. This old Victorian house was in central Sioux City. A local oral surgeon had it cut in two and moved to this site, then restored it.

Trinity Heights

A travel review describes the statues at Trinity Heights as "Herculean holies" These are 33 ft. tall metal sculptures of Mary and Jesus, set in a nice contemplative garden.

Three pilgrims.

In addition to the outdoor sculptures there is a life-size carving of the last supper.

Sergeant Charles Floyd

Floyd was the only member of the Lewis and Clark expedition to die during the journey. He died, apparently of appendicitis (medical descriptions of the era are not precise), not too long after the expedition left St. Louis, in what was to become the Sioux City area. He was buried on a high bluff overlooking the river.

Floyd is well-memorialized in SC. There is the Floyd River, a Floyd Monument at his gravesite (the first registered national historic landmark and second tallest obelisk in the US - below), and a US Corps of Engineers boat named the Sergeant Floyd that is now the Sergeant Floyd Museum. The drydocked boat, in a park along the riverfront, makes for a very interesting museum describing the history of Sioux City. (Part of that history, I found when I looked up a local Methodist Church, was the murder of a Methodist minister in 1886. Sioux City was a center of commerce on the Missouri at the time and rather wild. The unfortunate Rev. Haddock was a leading crusader for closing Sioux City's 77 saloons and an excuse for more alliteration.)

Here's a picture of a picture of the Sergeant Floyd when it was doing river duty.

Just down the riverfront from the museum is a Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center -- fairly similar to ones we saw on our L and C trek last summer. Here are the leaders with their faithful sidekick, Seaman.

United 232 Crash Memorial.

You may recall the 1989 airplane crash in Sioux City. You can find videos on the internet. Through heroic efforts in the air and on the ground, loss of life was not as bad as it might have been. This statue, also in the riverfront park, depicts a rescue scene.

Green Gables

We made an afternoon stop at the Green Gables restaurant which, Valerie had read, was a favorite of the Sioux City girl twins who grew up to be Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren. I had their Famous Hot Fudge Sundae, the highlight of which to me was the fact that the hot fudge came in a pitcher so you could pour it on when and where it was most needed as you worked your way down the bowl. The waitresses could have been contemporaries of Ann and Abigail, but didn't seem to remember much about them.

Ice Cream Capital of the World

While we're on the topic of ice cream, on another outing we traveled about 25 miles NE of Sioux City to Le Mars, which has this designation because it is home to Blue Bunny Ice Cream company which produces more ice cream than any other single company in any other city of the world. We toured their museum and finished it off at the ice cream shoppe.