Friday, August 18, 2006

Off to So Dak

I'm headed out to visit the parents in South Dakota this weekend. The Codington County Historical Society is hosting their annual house tour. I had a great time last year so I'm going back. Both of my dad's sisters will be there too so it should be fun.

Monday at our weekly sales meeting one of the other sales people asked me if there was any way I'd consider driving out to Willmar for a meeting today. As it is halfway to my parents house, I was immediately onboard. Sure, I'd love to, sign me up!

The boys will be staying at home and finishing the school shopping. I'm hoping that they will buy at least one shirt for school that doesn't say anything, but I'm not optimistic. The teenager's current favorite shirt says, "friends don't let friends wear mullets". This is the general tone of his entire wardrobe. It's just as well they are doing this shopping themselves. It would be an exercise in frustration for me to be in on this particular excursion to the Sprawl of America.

South Dakota is just not the most wired state in the U.S. There are 770,000 people living in the entire state. That's about a third of the population of the Twin Cities. In the whole state! 320,000 live in either Rapid City or Sioux Falls. That leave another 450,000 scattered in little towns and on farms all over the rest of the state. The wireless companies haven't found it necessary or financially viable to wire the whole place up. In Watertown my cell phone only works outside. I'm thinking finding WiFi anyplace for my laptop is going to be tough. In short, I may be out of touch for the next couple of days. I'm sure I will bring back pictures of small town weirdness though, so stay tuned.

10 comments:

Sheepish Annie said...

Maine is pretty similar in terms of connectivity. I have a very nice cell phone that I can't even use from my home unless I climb a tree or wear a tinfoil hat. Have a great weekend and enjoy all that small town "weird!" There is really nuthin' like it!! :)

Chris said...

Have a great weekend! Where in SoDak is Codington County?

Anonymous said...

Have a great time! The low population sounds nice - maybe I'll move there some day. Sometimes I get tired of the volume of people (and cars!) around Atlanta.

Knittymama said...

Small town weirdness, yay!

Deb said...

Have a good and safe trip.

renee said...

Sioux Falls has gotten better now, but I remember a couple of years ago, my brother and I were there for Christmas. We are in a fantasy football league and we desperately wanted to check our scores online and were running around town trying to find somewhere with an internet terminal or wi fi or something. We even went out to the airport, but no luck! Happily now my mom is addicted to the internet and she's got a nice high speed connection at home.

Guinifer said...

My husband's cousins own a farm in Eureka, SD (every bit as small town as you'd imagine, so I know the wierdness) and they are totally wired at the farm. Not so sure about the c-store though! DH goes out pheasant hunting every fall, and I only hear from him when he's hunting in certain fields. Have a great weekend!

pdxkatie said...

Just a note on CeCe - it's actually cute a cool pattern - I am just finding lace challenging because I am watching too much crappy tv while trying to stay on the pattern. Also, I am using fairly inexpensive yarn for my test sweater. My next version will be in bamboo or soy - something cool like that - once I figure out the kinks.

Have a good trip!

Sydney Harper said...

Have a great trip!

Anonymous said...

Hey, I'm from South Dakota. Used to love getting chicken and chislick from Ricky's chicken. I think after they deep fry it, they roll it in garlic salt. Hard to find good chislick anymore. Especially not in the NW burbs of Mpls where I reside.