City Emojis: ☕️Seattle

 1.💫🚀👩‍🚀🪡💉

2. 🚤🎣🏬🐠 🐟  🖐 🌬 💨 ➡️ 🙌  🎉 🎈 

3. 🚴 🚴 🚴 🚴 ☕️🚴🚴🚴🚴🏡 ➡️ 🏟 🏈 🍔 🍕 🛻 🍻 🥜🥤🥡🥨🌭➡️🏟🏈🏈🏈🏈➡️🏡 🛌 🌙 😴 💤 

South Dakota pt 8: Mini Golf⛳️

 

Mini golf + pirate cove = A great evening 

You can’t go wrong when you hit the tiny links with family and fun times all around. Aunt Joc (photographed above, in the midst of destroying the field) took home the prized gold medal🥇 with a consistent barrage of 2’s (although I believe my dad had 2 holes-in-ones - Grandma Arne got a hole-in-one! That was the best moment of the night - we turned into the towel wavers at the end of the bench of a Duke-UNC game in March. You look over at one of the pirates and it’s actually Dickie V - “I’m wearing pantaLOONS! We’re the Pantaloon Parrot Peopleeeeee!”) 

That shirt ⬆️ was $1 at a garage sale - Spokane Pickers! I had actually warmed up for maybe an hour at Grandma’s retirement village’s putting green - now that is a desirable feature! Lots of new apartments have lil doggie parks but where’s the Top Golf driving range simulator?

It was a dark, stormy night, thunder respectfully golf clapping in the distance but we journeyed onward.

South Dakota pt 7: Little Bighorn & Sturgis🍺🏍

My dad & I visited Little Bighorn battlefield - the site of General Custer’s Last Stand - on the 2nd day of the trip, after spending the night in Billings, not the nicest big city according to my dad (the most desirable & expensive cities & areas in Montana appear to be Bozeman/Paradise Valley, Kalispell/Flathead Lake & Missoula. I like Great Falls, obviously, since I’ve been there at least 25 times in my life - they say familiarity breeds contempt but I like returning to a city to see much of my Mom’s side of the family - probably wouldn’t have the appreciation for the town if not for the familial familiarity.) 

This was ⬆️ the Crazy Horse 🐴 part of the memorial - to honor the great Native American chief who was fearless because he believed he could not be killed - like the Jordan Flu Game. This was a very cool exhibit in a circular rock area - lots of big open spaces around there - desolate, rolling hills of gold and green - speaking of gold and green, bring back the Sonics! 

This was the inside part of the monument - they had some exhibits and artifacts but a big open room with space for a giant exhibit that my dad was saying used to be there - that or they are preparing to bring the exhibit back - the exhibit is on vacation in Cabo.

The enormous, sprawling Custer National Cemetery - with soldiers who died from lots of wars along with some Native Americans and other gravesites - lots of anonymous grave markings. Who visits the anonymous graves? I could see some 80 year old women doing that - visiting all the anonymous graves and putting flowers on them - that would be a noice old lady move, get some steps in, spread peace and joy, get some sunshine.🌸 💐 

🏍Right before rolling into Rapid City, we stopped at Sturgis Brewing, located in Sturgis, home of the world-famous Sturgis motorcycle rally - it reached peak attendance in 2015 with 739,000 motorcyclists roaring into town - that would be like if all the people in Seattle just picked up and all vacationed at the same random Midwest town at the same time - that is absolutely bonkers if you think about it. The brewery had tons of merch, the most merch I have ever seen at a brewery - they had a whole separate wing just for merch. The rally had just ended August 14 and we passed thru on the 21st so we narrowly missed the proceedings - but trying to wade thru that traffic would be akin to sticking your finger all the way through a square of Jell-O to the other side without mushing it all up - impossible, I say! 

South Dakota pt 6: Chapel in the Hills

 

Chapel in the Hills is an amazing piece of architecture - located in the hills of Rapid City, in accordance with its title, what a beautiful sight to see for anyone lucky enough to make the trek. Grandma Arne used to be on the board of this place - she’s the mayor of the Chapel just like she’s the mayor of her retirement home - Grandma Arne for city comptroller! Seriously though, every city government should have an honorary position for women over 80 - Grandma would run that town with an iron (shaky, delicate) fist - don’t mess with Grandma A or you’ll get the horns - she loves talkin’ smack, what a whippersnappin’ gal.

We listened to a recording inside the chapel - the God voice was the Don Pardo of Rapid City. We also did the prayer walk while Grandma sat in the shade (it was almost 100) - the brief hike was enlightening, getting to see the statues and be in nature. Speaking of nature, random tangent - I was nearly attacked by a baby squirrel yesterday morning - it must have been separated from its mother and was just looking for help - but I’ve never had a squirrel come at me and let me just say - it’s terrifying - I was hoppin’ and skippin’ like back in the day in football when you did the ladder drill. Hope the baby squirrel founds it’s momma squirrel. 🐿🏈

There was a cool lil gift shop that Aunt Joc bought one of those lil gnomes that has the hair blocking the eyes - you know, the emo gnomes. 

This was my favorite part - the awesome tiny cabin home that represented what it was like to live in that time (sometime in the 1800’s). Grandma pointed at a quilt and said it used to be hers and she had donated it - very neat. It would have been a great prank if one of the wax figures was actually one of the employees (like those FAIL clips shows) but then old people would die by surprise - you don’t want to surprise the elderly, they’ve been through enough, turn over all the cards - a surprise birthday party for your grandma could turn into a surprise funeral. 

South Dakota pt 5: Sheridan, WY

Sheridan, Wyoming is a great lil tourist hamlet, the midway point between Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone (which we would not visit this time but my Dad does love that show) - also, crazy connection - I feel like TMZ (which stands for Thirty Mile Zone as in the 30 mile radius of Hollywood - this would be called TMR as in Thirty Mile Zone of Rushmore) - speaking of Yellowstone, Kevin Costner’s parents actually lived in the very same old person home that my Grandma currently lives in (she’s a fan of the blog - shout out Grandma Arne in the hizzy!) Here’s the awesome photos (courtesy of Dad) below ⬇️ 

I definitely recommend spending a night or two in this wonderful mountain town - especially if you enjoy shows like Yellowstone, Deadwood, Westworld…any of those cowboy westerns, of which there are many new ones in that genre. There are some real-life cowboys & women in that place - we went to a local bar & grill that was full of them - it was like Roadhouse but with the WNBA on TV. 

We had this cool conversation with this couple (around my parents’ age - about 60) from Indiana - they were remarried so they had a combined family, both had kids before (a mixed family as they say). The guy (who looked like my old friend’s dad Bandy, who coached our basketball team back in the day) was an IU, Indiana Hoosiers alum and diehard while his wife was a Purdue Boilermaker (Drew Breeeeeeeeeees! Funny commercial a decade or so ago.) The guy loved NASCAR and regaled us with tales of Talladega, which he said was the best racetrack out there and the one you gotta visit if you like watching cars drive real fast and turn left - I would certainly make the voyage to the NASCAR homeland even though I’m not a huge fan of the sport, my 86 year-old Grandpa Dick (they call him “Dick” for a reason my cousin Daren said - he’s a notorious grump but he’s OUR grump) has loved it for decades. Also, Ricky Bobby is one of my favorite movies of all time, it’s gotta be in Will Ferrell’s top 3, so that would be pretty legendary to see the place where that took place, like traveling to Gettysburg for a historian - like Valley Forge but the tour guide is wearing a helmet that you suck beer outta a straw.

Another fun thing about these people was they had this garage door. Now, this wasn’t any ordinary garage door - it actually had a giant IU logo painted on it, representing the Hoosiers (speaking of Hoosiers, I was trying to tell my father how I thought it was strange that Gene Hackman retired from acting at the age of 74 back in ‘04 so that means we could have had 18+ years  and counting of Hackman in his twilight years. My point was I don’t think it makes sense to “retire” from acting because it’s unlike any other 9-5 regular “job”. I’m not “in” the business (I’m just gonna keep using quotes cuz it’s funny to me) but at least have sniffed around the periphery for a few years so I have some first hand knowledge - I’m pretty sure some professional acting jobs could be as little as 5 days and you’re in the movie (not like a main part of the movie but at least a few scenes, like Hamm in Top Gun: Maverick - I’m just guessing someone with a smattering of lines might be able to get away with less than a week on set or location or whatever - or maybe it depends on how many different scenes and locations they’re in.) Anyway, I got way off track - the point of all this was over the past 18+ years, Gene Hackman COULD have been in at least a few movies & TV shows - but at the same time, his net worth is $80 mil according to Google (who knows how they estimate those types of things - I bet the celebrity would give them a ballpark if Google just texted them - too many tax shenanigans probably floating around, though). Also, Hackman moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico which is like the opposite of Hollywood so he probably just wanted to get away from the ol’ biz and that whole rigamarole. All I’m saying is if I’m in his loafers, I would WANT to cameo in a cool Brad Pitt or Matt Damon or Tom Cruise or one of the Chris films every now and then just to shake up my 70’s and 80’s. He is actually a modernist painter and novelist so this is a renaissance man almost as old as the renaissance (kidding - love ya, Hack Attack). He sells his art online if you want some - you could be like, the coach from Hoosiers painted this! Then the person would ask if you knew him and you would have to awkwardly disappoint them. 

Enough Hackman hullaboo (which would be a great name for a podcast about his career if you want to start one of those - he starred in 102 films says IMDB, the Google of film/TV.) Sheridan - what a town - we walked through downtown around 7 am, a nice quiet area, not many walkers, seems like lots of tourists in the area as well as actual cowboys and ranchers. The bartender told us about her pet chicken that she brought on a flight and if I’m remembering correctly she actually had the bird on the plane itself, like with the other passengers? That can’t be right - at least it would have to be in a cage, you can’t just have a lose bird in the cabin, a flight attendant would duct tape it to a seat like a rowdy passenger. That area is full of actual cowboys and people who enjoy watching those types of people on TV so they travel there and check it out. Definitely a fun place to spend the night if you’re on the road, I recommend a pitstop in Sheridan, Wyoming.

 

South Dakota pt 4: Clark Fork

Apparently you drive over the Clark Fork (the largest river by volume in Montana, it connects to the mighty Columbia River, the largest river in Washington) 17 times on the way to Great Falls, Montana - one of my Mom’s friends said that so it must be true - like if Google was drunk on wine coolers and all it’s answers came back to the Bachelorette. Well, my Dad & I weren’t headed to the great GF this time because we were sticking to I-90 on our way to South Dakota. Before we reached our first night’s stop of Billings, MT, before we even reached Missoula, home of the University of Montana, the hated rivals of my parents alum the Montana State University Bobcats (in Bozeman, which we would go on to drive around on our way home - but more on that in a later post) we pulled over at a popular swimming hole and found a nice place for me to take a dip in the ice cool rapids of Western Montana (Dad stayed on land, per usual, the landlubber.) The river was running through my veins - I was the titular “it” that the Brad Pitt movie was referring to (set in, you guessed it - Missoula, Montana! But filmed in the Bozeman area on the Gallatin River (Bozeman is the seat of Gallatin County) - thusly the rivalry roars on between the Cats & Grizz - Go Cats!) 

It was a hot day (nearly 100, without a doubt), and the water was twice as nice because of those oppressive sun rays. I love swimming - especially in natural bodies of water - especially when they are freezing cold mountain water straight outta a Coors commercial on a football Sunday (coming soon - can’t wait for the season, as always). Alas, it was a lovely pit stop on our first long day of driving - road trips rule - quality father-son time, good times. We would go on to have a great trip and make a lot of awesome memories but this was just our first stop along the way - nature rules. I love a good candid photo. ⬇️ Also, Clark Fork sounds like a sidewinding reliever from the 70’s, a Rollie Fingers disciple, a chip off the ol’ stache.