Another travel day — Sioux Falls, South Dakota to Newton, Iowa which is east of Des Moines.
After having the holiday off yesterday, Martha was hard at work today while Byron drove. Because it was another 300+ mile day, we left Sioux Fall without seeing the falls for which the town was named.
The cascading falls of Sioux Falls on the Big Sioux River. The city has developed a park. On the bluffs above the river are several Indian burial mounds. Sioux Falls is in Minnehaha County.
After traveling about 45 miles Byron saw a sign that simply read “Visit National Music Museum, Vermillion - Exit 26. Since this was a museum he hadn’t heard of did a search and came up with a phone number. After talking to the receptionist at the museum and finding we could park in the bus space in front of the library, we took a small detour from the I-29 by ten miles.
The Museum is in an old Carnegie library on the southern edge of the University of South Dakota. The town of Vermillion is but 10,000 in population though the enrollment at the University is 14,000. The school even hosts the state’s law and medical schools. Since this was a working day for Martha, Byron visited on his own. He didn’t mind so much because this place would surely hold his attention well.
The National Museum of Music is on the campus of the University of South Dakota in Vermillion.
He found out that the National Museum of Music (formerly called the Shrine to Music Museum) holds the world’s largest, most comprehensive collection of 15,000 rare and historic American, European and non-Western musical instruments and is well-known internationally; research scholars have visited from Berlin, Paris, London, Moscow, and New York. It holds many of the earliest, best preserved, and most historically important musical instruments known. On display in the climate-controlled environment are 1,100 different instruments in arranged in nine galleries. It also houses a small concert hall, library, and conservation laboratory. The collection includes a large variety of keyboard instruments, guitars, violins and other string instruments, clarinets and other woodwind instruments, brass horns, and an extensive collection of instruments from a variety of ethnic groups around the world. A writer for Forbes stated: “Bob Dylan’s and Johnny Cash’s guitars meet Stradivarius violins at this dazzling museum.” They even have a guitar that was autographed by B.B. King after playing a concert there.
Only a handful of instruments can be viewed in this photo which are in the gallery exhibiting a variety of keyboard instruments including pianos, harpsichords, clavichords, and a pipe organ built in Pennsylvania in 1826.
How about this exhibit of brass instruments? The double-bell instrument on the right is played by a choice of mouth pieces; one in a standard method and another with a resonator built into it.
After leaving the Vermillion around noon, we traveled on. Since we hadn’t seen a Cracker Barrel in ten days or so we decided to have our big meal of the day at the one in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
The motorhome was comfortable while parked under a couple of trees in Vermillion but on the I-29 in the heat of the day it was necessary to have both roof AC unit running to stay pleasant. About 20 miles from Council Bluff we hit a bump that jarred the coach and the forward air conditioner cut off. Within minutes it started getting hotter. (One of the things about owning a used motorhome is the feeling of “what now” when something doesn’t work as you’d expect). Martha closed off some of the vents in the rear to move as much air forward as possible but it did not seem to help. Just before getting to the Cracker Barrel Martha spotted a Camping World and said: “I think we need to pay them a visit right after we eat.” Once parked Byron was able to determine that the circuit breaker had tripped. Needless to say, we were happy about that simple fix.
It is obvious as to why Council Bluffs is named what it is. To the east of the city a high, river bluff runs parallel to the river that divides Iowa and Nebraska. As we drove east on I-80 we climbed the bluff and started toward Newton for the KOA. The topology is interesting; large rolling hills where the corn fields are terraced. That is something neither of us have seen before.
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