The Great SD
For Memorial Day weekend, Bethany and I made the long trek up to South Dakota to visit her parents. We actually hadn’t made it up there since last August. I took Thursday and Friday off of work so that we could make it an even longer weekend. We left Thursday morning when Bethany got off of work after working for twelve hours. Needless to say, she slept for most of the ride. We made pretty good time on the eight hour drive by making it in only six and a half hours and we arrived mid-afternoon. We just bummed around the house for the rest of the day. It’s amazing how much a long drive can take it out of you.
Bethany has a dog at her parents house whose name is Sam. Sam, you should know, is a farm dog of farm dogs. He loves running around the farm, rolling around in mud, and eating whatever he happens to find. Because he is such a farm loving dog, he gets pretty dirty really fast. Bethany said that the last time she gave him a bath was when she was in high school. On Friday, Bethany decided that Sam needed to have a bath after all of these years. Let’s face it, he smelled. So she broke out the dog shampoo that was left from eight years ago and went to town on him while I just sat back and relaxed in the sun. Sam was such a sport. While I can’t say he really enjoyed the bath, he did put up with it without much of a struggle. After getting hosed off and shaking a bit, he did what any good farm dog would do, he walked right over to the driveway and rolled around in the dirt for a couple minutes. It was pretty much a taunt saying that no matter how clean you make me, you can’t change me.
Saturday we woke up a little earlier than we did the previous day, which really isn’t saying much, to head over to Aberdeen for some horse races. Aberdeen is the closest city to Eureka at about 70 miles away. We arrived at the track right about 1:00 on what was really a beautiful day. To our amazement, the tickets to get in were free and the program was only $3 so we decided to splurge for one. While we’re not gamblers, we did pick out a horse to root for each race. The first race started at 1:30 so we had plenty of time to scoop out the horses and have ours picked for the first race. What we didn’t realize after the first race was that it took 30 minutes before the next race would start. Thankfully, there were good concessions at the track for during the breaks. It was quite a fun day. What I didn’t realize though, was sitting in the same position all day puts the sun on the same side of me for the same amount of time. Unfortunately, this meant that the sun beat on me all day and gave me a nice sunburn on the left side of my neck and part of my face. Not a whole lot of fun let me tell you. Thankfully, the burn is about gone now and it doesn’t sting too much anymore.
We went to Bethany’s home church on Sunday morning at 9:00 which meant the earliest morning of the three. After church, we went back to the house and started to pack up our stuff. Along with all of our things, we also packed up a whole bunch of food. It’s hard to say no to a whole bunch of meat from a cattle farmer! That is some of the best meat you will ever have, hands down. After lunch, we loaded up the car and started the long trek back to Oakdale.
Just so you have an idea of what a good looking place South Dakota can be, here is a picture to mull over until you get your chance to visit. Be sure to check out all of my pictures from the weekend posted on my pictures page.
