On our way from Central Illinois to Mount Rushmore, we planned to stop for a night in Sioux City, Iowa since it was a little over halfway through the drive.  If you’re unfamiliar with Sioux City like we were, it’s on Iowa’s western border with Nebraska and is only a stone’s throw from the South Dakota border.  While we were there we had time to stop a few places, and it was a really good experience. 

Cone Park

Cone Park was listed as something to do on the Visit Sioux City website – it advertised Friday night “Snow Glow” on their man-made snow tubing hill, so we decided we would try out.  We bought our $10 tickets in advance for the event which ran from 6p to 9p; we got there around 7:30 and didn’t have any trouble getting our passes in their lodge.

The weather had started to get warmer so it was the last weekend Cone Park was open for the season; the only snow they had was blown snow and other parts of the park like ice skating were closed.  It was a cute park – the lodge was small but had seating and concessions, we zip-tied the lift tickets to our jackets for the magic carpet up to the top of the snow tubing hill, and since it was a Snow Glow night they played a lot of fun music and had color-changing lights on the hill.

This was my first time snow tubing and given it was in the middle of a town in Iowa, I was pretty impressed.  The hill is set up with about a dozen lanes so people can race or you can just go whenever it’s clear.  We went down about half a dozen times – when Dom and I went down together on a double tube it was pretty slow, but when we went down solo we went much faster and it was a lot more fun.

It was definitely a very family friendly, elementary to middle school oriented place.  While we did have fun, we probably wouldn’t go back since it wasn’t really for adults, but it’s something fun to do with kids during the winter.  A few things to note are that the address took us to a parking lot near Cone Park, but not the actual parking lot, and like I mentioned earlier, the park is now closed for the season but should reopen at the end of this year – last year it opened on December 20^th.

Hardline Coffee Co.

If you know Dom for any length of time, you’ll quickly realize he LOVES coffee.  He’s always wanting to try local coffee shops when we’re traveling, which is fun since they’re so cute and typically have really good coffee. So, in Sioux City we tried Hardline Coffee Co. and it did not disappoint.  Dom’s go-to drink is cold brew, and while he was tempted to try a flavored cold brew from their new spring menu, he ended up just ordering it black.  He said it was very good but it was very strong, which he liked, but people who don’t like bold coffee may not be fans.

I like drinks that taste a little like coffee but mostly like dessert (think: a Starbucks Salted Caramel Mocha), so I usually try lattes at local coffee shops with some kind of flavoring in them.  We’ve stopped at a lot of local coffee shops over the last few years, but Hardline Coffee Co. undoubtedly had the best latte I’ve ever had.  I was intrigued when I saw they had homemade syrups (caramel, mocha, and vanilla) so I ordered a latte with half caramel and half mocha, which I think just means it was a mocha instead of a latte?  Not sure – let me know if you’re a coffee expert.  Regardless, it was INCREDIBLE.  10/10 recommend and I was legitimately sad when I finished it.

There were a lot of cool things about Hardline Coffee Co.;  I’ve already mentioned a few – they had a new spring menu that was replacing the previous season menu, and they had homemade syrups – but it also had a really cool ambiance.  They had half a wall covered in bookshelves with all kinds of books for people to read while having coffee (Dom flipped through a book on Ireland while we were there), and they also had a piano and different plants everywhere.  Like most coffee shops, they had quite a few tables and Wifi, but they also had high top counters by the window and comfy-looking armchairs for people to sit in while they read.

Overall, this is definitely a coffee shop to stop by if you’re driving through or in the area.  They also have a really aesthetically pleasing Instagram page full of wonderful looking coffee if you need some happy coffee posts on your feed.

Loess Hills Hiking and the Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center

When planning our trip to SLC, we looked into trails near Sioux City because 1) we always love a good hike and 2) we knew it would be good to get in some kind of exercise before getting back in the car and driving for the rest of the day.  We found the Loess Hills Hiking website and saw the Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center was on our way out of town, so we wrote that into the itinerary between our coffee stop and getting back on the road.

The nature center was only a few minutes off the highway and there were plenty of signs pointing us in the right direction which was nice – we don’t always trust Apple Maps with directing us to parking lots when we’re going on hikes.  It was easy to find the trail – it was a little muddy since all of the snow was melting, but overall it was a great trail to walk.  We got in about three miles – part of that was on a hiking only trail and the other part was open for hikers, mountain bikers, and horse trail rides.  We came to a lot of forks in the trail so we could have walked for hours if we’d had time – we only scratched the surface – but the parts we did were easy trails so it was more like a walking path through some hills in the woods than an actual hike.

The Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center building was interesting.  There were a lot of animals that were stuffed and on display, which gave it a very… Cabela’s feel.  There were a lot of signs and exhibits explaining the animals and how the Loess Hills were formed.  They also had a few live animals – a bird with a broken wing that they rescued, a few snakes, turtles, fish, and some bees… but a lot of the bees were dead?  Not sure what was up with that.  Anyway, the information was interesting and we were glad we stopped in.

On this trip, Sioux City started out as somewhere that happened to be halfway between where we started and where we needed to go, but it ended up being a really great stop.  I’m sure we’ll go by again on another drive out west, and we may even go back to for a weekend so we can go on more of the Loess Hills hikes.