Next to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, connected by a paved bike path was the Charles Floyd Riverboat Museum. Riverboat Museums seem to be a thing on our country’s major rivers. There was a Riverboat Museum in Marietta OH, then in Brownsville, NE there was a boat called the Meriwether Lewis Dredge. A dredge clears out deposits on the bottom of the river to make the river more navigable. This dredge was normally a museum, but was undergoing renovation as it had been badly damaged during, you guessed it! The flood of 2019.
The Charles Floyd Riverboat Museum was free admission. It had a small section on Charles Floyd. Someone had done a forensic reproduction of him based on a casting of his skull. I noticed that the forensic artist looked an awful lot like the wax bust he created of Charles Floyd. There were sections on the Native American tribes in the area, dioramas of riverboats on the Missouri, a diorama of Charles Floyd’s funeral. They had a dugout canoe, and then upstairs you could go to the pilot’s station and get a view of the water. You could even ring a bell!
I was thrilled when I got to the gift shop and found a huge collection of postcards for sale from Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota. I was almost done with the former two states and hadn’t found a single one. I bought a bunch, figuring I’d send out postcards from Pierre or Bismarck.
It was a hot, muggy afternoon and I hadn’t even gotten out of Sioux City, so I hopped on the bike path and headed for Vermillion. I don’t actually know when I crossed the border. There wasn’t a sign. But, I reached Jefferson, which I knew to be in South Dakota. My 11th state! I stopped for lunch in Elk Point. There had been a few hills on the border but then it was blessedly flat until I reached Vermillion.
My schedule had been set askew by so many days in Omaha/Council Bluffs. I usually took a day off on the weekend, biked for six days and continued the cycle. I try to stay at campgrounds on my cycling days and hotels on my day off, so I can have wifi. That attempt hasn’t been particularly successful of late. Since I didn’t get on the road again until Wednesday though, it was already weekend again, and in this part of the country, campgrounds fill up on the weekends and it’s difficult to find a site. It’s one reason I was at a hotel in Sioux City on Friday night. Well, tonight, yet again it was supposed to pour. South Dakota was in the middle of a drought and I brought the rain with me all the way from Missouri.
I’m sure I’ve mentioned this, but since getting caught in flooding, I’ve been skittish about staying at campgrounds in the rain. Not only was it supposed to pour that night, but it was supposed to pour all day the next day, and I was done with riding in the rain. That, coupled with the bike drama in Omaha, and the fact that it looked like Pierre would be my next opportunity to take a day off and that was a week away (that’s 10 days straight of biking with devastatingly low morale, including a ride in the pouring rain) I decided it made sense to take a day off in Vermillion and catch up on my blog.
My motel room was on the second floor. Once again it was tough to find a place online. I wound up only able to book one night. It said it was the last room available and that it wasn’t available the next night. I got the room anyway, figuring I’d troubleshoot the next night when I got there. Well, I got there and the staff told me it was no problem to add another night, that I just needed to check out and check back in in the morning. It poured that evening, as expected, but there was a lull the next morning before it began. I got up as early as I could given how dark my hotel room was, secured my room for that night, and biked to Spirit Mound, a mound north of Vermillion that the plains tribes said was the home of dangerous spirits. Lewis and Clark brought a party to investigate the mound in August 1804.
The historical markers here endeared Meriwether Lewis’s dog to me further than ever. Poor Sea got overheated in the sweltering August temperatures and Lewis had to send someone back to the keelboat with him. I went on a Sea information bender, texting with my mom who wanted to know how old Sea was when he died. He was 4 or 5, and according to reliable sources when Meriwether Lewis ended his own life, Sea withered away. He wouldn’t leave his master’s body and refused food and water until he died. Don’t be surprised if I wind up with a Newfoundland after reading that. I also learned that Clark bought Seaman a collar when they returned that said “The greatest traveler of my species. The name is SEAMAN, the dog of captain Meriwether Lewis whom I accompanied to the Pacifick ocean through the interior of the continent of North America.” I melted at how sweet and human that was. Clark bought a present for his best friend’s dog!
I got breakfast at a little cafe on Main Street called Café Bruleé. Country Fried Chicken on a rainy day may just be the best decision you can possibly make. Honestly, I thought it was going to be a coffee shop, but I needed to eat and it was the right choice. Afterwards I went to The Bean Community, just down the block, and continued work on my blog and instagram with a lavender latte in hand.
The Stars On the Horizon 