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South Dakota

After returning from an amazing time in Australia, I have to say that I wasn't super excited about visiting Sioux Falls, SD. But, I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun it was. Our first stop was Porter Sculpture Park in Montrose, about 30 minutes from Sioux Falls Airport. Admission was only $10 since both boys are under 12 years old and free, otherwise, it's $5 for kids 13-17 years of age. It was interesting, definitely creative and worth visiting, but a lot of sculptures were also a bit dark & creepy - Tim Burton style. Nothing that gave my boys nightmares but dark enough for them to say that the sculptures weren't really for kids.





We then drove to Super Saturday Fishing at the Outdoor Campus - Sioux Falls. What a wonderful free program to learn the basics of fishing! It was so well organized with all of the equipment provided plus sunscreen, mosquito spray, water, ice pops, and there were plenty of volunteers to show us how to fish and where the fish like to hang out. Both boys caught 2 fish each 🐟🐟🐟🐟.




Just across the parking lot from the Outdoor Campus was Butterfly House & Aquarium. Again, I was surprised at how much the boys enjoyed the exhibits. It was a smaller aquarium, but they really took their time at each exhibit and especially enjoyed touching the horseshoe crabs. The highlight was feeding the butterflies. 



No trip to Sioux Falls would be complete without visiting Falls Park. I wasn't sure if we were allowed to walk on the rocks, but several people were doing it, and I didn't see any signs that said we couldn't. The boys enjoyed making their way down to the waters. Very picturesque!



Since it was so hot outside, we also looked for a fun indoor activity and found Archery Outfitters. For $16.50 each, the boys learned some archery basics and shot arrows for 45 minutes. It was my older son's 1st time and younger son's 2nd time in archery, but they both got pretty close to bullseye. 



My food highlight was the Khmer Chicken Curry at the Cambodian restaurant Phnom Penh. It was unlike any Indian, Thai, Malaysian, Chinese, Japanese, or Korean curry I'd ever had, and it's hard to describe. It was a red paste with coconut milk, but very mild in spiciness while still being very flavorful. It wasn't too sweet or creamy as some coconut based curries can be, just very savory and aromatic. So delicious, I took the leftovers home and had it for breakfast. 😋 We also enjoyed the Vietnamese phở and Thai drunken noodles.


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