Jill and I needed to get to Des Moines in a hurry, and we were both a little worn out from our long day and second consecutive night of camping. The day was gray and we listened to fun Saturday NPR programs ("Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," "Car Talk," "Says You") and were sufficiently distracted that we almost forgot to stop to try to find the SD-IA-NE tri-point, at the mouth of the Sioux River at the Missouri, just west of Sioux City, Iowa.
We had several options to reach the closest point on land to the tri-point (which is in the middle of the river), but the best and the fastest was to head up the hill (so that the Interstate was between us and the river) to War Eagle Park. The Park had a big statue of War Eagle, a friendly-to-the-white-settlers Native American leader, who will stand in eternity overlooking the tri-point. I had no idea until this visit that Native American leaders were also into tri-points just like me. Insert further potentially offensive comment here.
The tri-point itself is just downriver of the brushy point of land (the southeast tip of South Dakota) in the middle of the river in the photograph. You'll see that there is also a nice mixed-use path along the river, between I-29 and the river bank, so if you're tri-pointing this place, you can get physically much closer by taking a little jog along the path, but we drove up the hill for a good view instead (and my GPS' batteries had died). Yeah, I know, not very exciting. The next one is cooler.
