The Battleship South Dakota Monument -- Sioux Falls

We checked in with Orinda's physician and learned that she will need some surgery which is scheduled for Monday. This means that we will spend a week or so in Sioux Falls and decided to stay in the Fairgrounds location.

This gives us a great opportunity to explore the Sioux Falls area and we started with the Battleship South Dakota monument. This is an interesting monument with the ship outlined on the ground in full scale -- it is like the ship is buried in the dirt so that only the top of the hull is exposed. This gives you a great feeling of the great size of the ship.

The South Dakota was the most decorated battleship of WWII and was engaged in many battles all over the Pacific. In fact, after the Japanese declared they had sunk it (several times), the South Dakota was referred to as Battleship X to confuse the issue!

The 16" guns fired a shell that weighed 2,700 pounds - like shooting a Honda Civic! The gun barrel that is on display is very impressive -- and the South Dakota carried 12 of these! By the way, this photo is actually a panorama shot consisting of 3 regular photos. Very cool technology.