My Funny Valentine...

Corn.

Corn.

More Corn...

That's pretty much our experience in Iowa. We occasionally saw some wind farms and that was it for variety. To break the monotony we stopped in Fort Dodge and found a fort museum and frontier village. It was the Shelburne Museum of Iowa with a collection of buildings from the 1800's from around the state. We also had a picnic in the parking lot with the employee giving us weird looks.

Here's our favorite cabin from the village:



We were Nebraska-bound and crossed over the Missouri River in Sioux City. Looking on the map we found a campground that looked to be about four hours away. I called and made a reservation for the night not realizing that we would be taking detours to get there since the state was flooded.

Dinner was in O'Neill, Nebraska (the self-proclaimed Irish capital of the state) at the Blarney Stone. Greasy and delicious! We headed towards Smith Falls State Park and the towns got smaller and smaller and farther between. It looked like we were REALLY driving to the middle of nowhere. It was getting dark and perhaps my choice of a podcast on Serial Killers was not the best. A little freaked out, we finally saw the sign for the park (the ONLY sign for miles).

We set up our tent and despite a little stormy weather to the north, it didn't hit us!



Our site was right on the Niobrara River (a National Scenic River) and we awoke to a beautiful view! We couldn't pass up the opportunity to rent some kayaks and check it out. We hiked up to Smith Falls:



Then we got shuttled from our campsite (great service!!) a few miles north and kayaked (really floated...) the river back to the site. We paddled between beautiful sandstone cliffs, but didn't bring the camera for fear of rapids. (Two not-too-brilliant canoeists did take a spill. We would have helped but it was too funny watching them try to get back in the canoe in the middle of the river rather than going to the banks. It was pretty shallow...) The cliffs were topped with a layer of ashfall and it was easy to see eons of deposition in the striated cliffs. If we ever come back we'll have to get tubes and enjoy a lazy day on the river.

Now we're in Valentine, Nebraska about to head northwest to the Badlands. South Dakota - here we come!