Today, we drove form Deadwood to Belle Fourche, South Dakota. It's referred to as the Geographical Center of the Country. Kind of an interesting factoid, but there's not a whole lot going on there. My grandfather on my mom's side lives there and the kids have never met him, so we wanted to fit a visit in on this trip. He's no longer driving, so I dropped the kids off at a nearby park and went to pick him up from the assisted living center. He seemed genuinely happy to see me, and we visited in his room for a few minutes before he and his tiny dog named Tank hopped in our van. We took a slight detour on our way back to the park so he could show me a few things around town, but that only added about 2 total minutes to the commute. The city is quite small.
There's some bad blood between him and most of my family, but I was pretty far removed from it so I guess I lucked out there. Still, even if we weren't on very good speaking terms, I think I would still want to try to meet him on this trip for the kids' sake, if nothing else. I never had the chance to meet my dad's dad and I think about it every so often, so I'm ecstatic we were able to take all the kids to meet my dad's mom last summer shortly before she passed.
The visit was good. The younger kids were all very excited to come meet him and Tank. Especially Tank. After just a few minutes, they went back to playing in the park while "A" and I chatted with Grandpa. And got eaten alive by mosquitos. There are SO MANY MOSQUITOS! It's really annoying. We talked about the area, we talked a little about his past time as a firefighter, and we talked a little about what he does these days.
A little after noon, I took him back to his room at the assisted living center and he gave me a few heirlooms that he wanted to pass to me. I loaded them into the van and came to eat lunch at the park with "K" and the kids where the mosquitos continued to feast on us.
We drove back to Deadwood and headed to the historic Main Street. Apparently Wild Bill was assassinated there about a hundred and fifty years ago, so they put on some fun little theatrical events every day in the summer. We caught one where they acted out a shootout that supposedly really happened. They use real 1800s revolves loaded with blanks, which "C" did NOT appreciate. We walked down to a little bridge over a creek and then over to the Deadwood visitor's center.
It started to rain, so we went back to our van and drove back to the hotel. We went down to the pool for about an hour and then put the whole herd through the shower. Dinner, a little Disney channel, and then bed! Tomorrow's a long day in the car, we're officially headed to Nebraska (for real this time).