Day 2

Good Morning


Jeremy and I wake up and have the same breakfast as the day before. It's still yummy, but I do wish they would change it up from day to day. We return to our room after eating, and I sign into work. Jeremy goes out on the town to do some shopping.

Falls of the Big Sioux River


Jeremy returns after a while, and I sign off for lunch. We decide to go see Sioux Falls, the actual waterfall. We find out that the waterfall is called Falls of the Big Sioux River since the town is called Sioux Falls.


The waterfall is right in the heart of downtown. We clamber around the rocky shore of the Big Sioux River to get different views of the waterfall itself. The park is quite lovely, and it's pretty much open to where you can go. I did not see any signs indicating that you couldn't climb on anything, though caution is always advised.

Water cascades down pink limestone cliffs into a tranquil pool below.
Wide waterfall cascades over dark rocky cliffs into a blue pool surrounded by stones.
Sunlit waterfall flows through pink stone canyon walls into reflective waters below.

Downtown Sioux Falls


It does not take us long to view the waterfalls, so we head over to a place called Josiah's for coffee. Jeremy orders an iced macchiatto, and I get a vanilla latte. We also purchase a bag of dog treats called "Mount Ruffmore". I'm not going to lie to you, the name got me to purchase them. I love punny names. Our three girls at home will love the treats. We also each order a pastry: Jeremy gets a cinnamon roll, and I get a lemon poppyseed coffee cake. We absolutely love Josiah's and would highly recommend anyone to go there.


We still have some time before I have to get back to work, so we go down to that Child's Play Toys store and buy a new copy of the game Cascadia to gift to Justin and his fiancé. We also walk back down to Mrs. Murphy's Irish Gifts where I buy myself a wool sweater. The owner of the store is curious if we have Irish heritage. We both do, and we tell him as such. He brings out a book of Irish surnames and asks us what the names are. Jeremy goes first and tells him our last name is Kearney, and the gentleman opens up the book to the Kearney pages. He welcomes me to take photos of the pages for us to have, so I do. I then ask him about O'Sullivan which is from my maternal side of the family. I take a picture of those pages, too. We also pick up a few other gifts for friends and family.

Coffee shop interior with pastries and beverages on a wooden table near a counter with menu boards.
Close-up of a dictionary page showing Irish surname definitions and origins.
Open book page showing genealogical entries and surname origins.
Page from reference book showing Irish family name origins and historical information.
Book page displaying alphabetical entries of Celtic family name origins.
Printed page of genealogical text with historical Irish family information.
A page from an old book or dictionary showing academic text entries and definitions.

The Evening


After I am done with work we head over to Look's Market Place to have dinner with Justin. This place has, by far, the best cheese curds found on this trip. You know that they know what's up because they even serve the curds with ranch dressing. Justin orders a spicy fried chicken sandwich, Jeremy gets a Porkules (said like Hercules, yes, love the name), and I order a chicken bacon ranch sandwich. Justin and Jeremy also each enjoy a pint of a local beer called 15 Minutes.


After dinner, we all walk out to our cars where we say our goodbyes. We gift Justin the copy of Cascadia we had bought for him.


Justin then heads home, and we go shopping. Jeremy had went to a few stores earlier that day that he wanted to show me, so we went and looked at Rainbow Comics and Last Stop CD Shop. We end up purchasing a few things before calling it a night and returning to our hotel.