Wow, down to my final two days in South Dakota.

This Saturday required an early start, as I was supposed to meet up with my cousin Clayton (I’ve called him Clay most of my life, but since everybody else went formal, I’m joining in. Being married to a Victoria who detests being called ‘Vicky’, I understand) and his wife Dawn in beautiful downtown Aberdeen for the annual Gypsy Day Parade, which stepped off at 9am. More on that in a moment.

I went to the hotel lobby, enjoyed a quick waffle breakfast and then headed out the door to find my rental car frosted over. They had predicted a freeze, and they were right. This is what 28 degrees looked like.

Well, if that doesn’t just frost your windshield!

After warming the car up so the glass would thaw, I headed for downtown Aberdeen. With the parade starting at 9, I wanted to make sure I got down there early enough to grab a parking spot and get to know my way around. Let me tell you, 28-degrees will wake you up.

People had set up their lawn chairs and lined the street, preparing for the big Gypsy Day Parade. OK, about the name. If you live in the PC world, it’s an outdated term that needs to go. But back here in the Midwest, it was just something they had been doing forever and while the younger generation had been suggesting for a while they change it, the Gypsy Day name remained.

My 95-year-old mom remembers back in her day that people would dress up like Gypsies for the day’s events. The 2023 edition featured the big parade, followed by a football game at the new Northern State University football stadium in the afternoon.

But first thing’s first–I needed to locate my cousin and after a bit of wandering around, there he was! I hadn’t seen him for six years, but when you get to our age, you don’t really change much over a couple of years.

Clayton and Dawn were excited to have me join their stalking party. You see, their parade tradition was to be moving spectators for the parade. Their youngest, Ember, was a proud member of the N.S.U. marching band, so as they progressed along the parade route, we’d walk alongside them and enjoy the music. I love small town Americana and I was basking in it. But it was a cold bask.

Of course, if you’re celebrating Gypsy Day, you have to have a “King of the Gyps”, right?

The radio stations in town (apparently all owned by the same company) had their boom box in the parade.

Not exactly sure what was going on here. Maybe a vacation suggestion?

Some farm equipment. (dang that was big)

And what’s a Gypsy Day parade without the N.S.U. Young Republicans Club and an elephant boxing a donkey? Of course, the elephant won.

And look at that! Royalty in the house-the South Dakota Snow Queen!

The parade continued, but we wandered over to the N.S.U. campus where we could chat a bit with Ember….

and then enjoyed a couple of performances by the band prior to them handing out awards to the high school bands that took part in the parade.

After this, my cousin and his wife had to drive home quickly to their home 45-minutes away to take care of the critters on their farm. They gave me my ticket for the football game and said they’d see me in a couple of hours.

I used this occasion to walk back to my car, get inside and turn the heater on and drive around. Since it was lunch time, I spotted a Taco Bell and thought, “I haven’t eaten at a Taco Bell in like, forever!” What happened next was unbelievable.

OK, the restaurant was busy, but I was in no rush, so I placed my order and waited. I had committed something like $10.12 to the local economy and started to wait. And wait. And wait. At what point would you give up and just walk away, consider it a loss and go to someplace where you could actually get food? I sat there and watched person after person, yelling at the two slow-moving guys in the kitchen, probably doing their absolute best, but this was ridiculous. From the time I ordered, until the time my food was handed to me–note the time stamp at the top when they printed my receipt and when I placed the order below.

Yes, 59 minutes. This was an apparent problem all over Aberdeen, as I often heard about the poor quality of service almost everywhere. I enjoyed going to a Wing place next to my hotel, but one cousin said they would never go there again because of a similar “Taco Bell” situation where it took forever to get served.

But I had earned my Taco Bell lunch, so wolfed it down and then headed back over to the football stadium. What a beautiful friggin’ facility!

I told my cousin, I don’t mean to be picky, but they spelled Dakota wrong.

The field, the big screen…this was all big-time. And to top it all off, a win for the homecoming game fans.

I thanked my cousin for the football game and they got ready to head back to the farm. But on the way out, they invited me to join them for a breakfast the next morning at their daughter Ashley’s house. My streak of never saying no to a meal remained intact.

I added it to the list of adventures awaiting me on Day 6. But in the meantime, to wrap up Day 5, I headed over to Virginia’s house to hang with her and Rhonda and chat the night away until it was time for me to go back to the hotel and crash.

It was a very fun day!

Tim Hunter