May 30, 2022: Blog as Journal: my posts are usually for a slightly broader audience than just-me even though Time and Place does often serve as my daily journal. My blog is also intended as more than a family scrapbook—except when it’s just exactly that. In honor of a momentous family event, cousin Vivian’s 90th birthday party. Here’s Sioux Falls, South Dakota 2022, celebrating with Vivi.

Time and Place does remain a travel blog and Sioux Falls, South Dakota was on my itinerary earlier this month. That’s not quite the same as heading off to the continent of Africa (which I’m doing tomorrow) for various wild animal and big city adventures, however there are similarities. For example, my 90-year-old cousin Vivian, whose birthday we were celebrating, is easily as fierce as most denizens of the savannah and bush. Sometimes roaring like a lion, or fierce as a cheetah; she’s also as much fun as that proverbial barrel of monkeys, so actually the trips will be quite alike. Hey Cousin, you know this is meant as a compliment. Right?

Daughter Sheila, who lives in Illinois but is the main manager of her mom’s needs, and in and out of Sioux Falls with great frequency, planned the party at the family’s favorite Chinese restaurant, and also had her son and daughter in town for the festivities. Sheila is retired from an extremely successful career in the corporate world, and now meshes a whole lot of family activities with…drum roll…Travel. It seems her daughter Jenny may have more than a little of that DNA, and they spend a fair amount of time adventuring out into the world.

The jaunt up to Sioux Falls was perfect. Since Vivian is in a senior living apartment now, I stayed part of the time with Vivian’s youngest son, Ron, and part of the time, with Marty, whose husband, my cousin Richard, was killed in a car accident many years ago. I had planned to stay at a hotel, but am so very glad I didn’t because both visits were as family travels should be: warmly different and talky and fun. Ron lives with his son Jaren, sharing a real ‘guys’ place, completely comfortable, but full of unusual things like Tai Kwan Do dummies, pictures of Ron with Gorbachev when he visited Sioux Falls, and a pet rabbit named Beauty who’s too old to move much and looks just a bit worse for wear, but is much-loved. Ron trades stocks, sometimes flips houses, and currently is the security guy for the only abortion clinic in South Dakota, picking up the doctors who fly in from other states.

Staying at Marty’s was girl-time: talking into the night while snacking on Madeleine’s with a bathroom full of all the girly lotions and niceties one could desire. We had dinner one night with Marty’s kids and grandkids, which allowed me to get to know the next generations a little better. What a fine family I’m part of…so happy to be one of the Strom/Florens/Wolfes of Sweden, Norway, and South Dakota.

I really did miss staying with Vivi though. We were always up late, sharing old family stories and new tales of aging-woe, feasting on Vivian’s best junk, fast, and occasionally-healthful goodies which covered a nearby countertop. I miss the great comfort of her little old house where I visited my whole life. Familiar places comfort and intrigue me—whether the geography and history of “my” places: Byglandsfjord, Norway where dad was born; Northome, Minnesota; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; or Albuquerque, New Mexico—but even more they give me the security and pleasure of belonging.

I’ve come to love the odd geography and outlier feel of South Dakota over these last years: I’ll compare it again to the Africa visit by saying that even though parts of the state are quite savannah-like in appearance, there’s also a jungly-contingent of venomous creatures in South Dakota known as Republicans. Fortunately the few Republicans I know of in my family are holdovers from the days when the party—while misguided(!)—was basically rational, and usually no more or less corrupt than the opposition. Olden times, we call that.

The family noted and admired—my posts will now revert to pure travel. Sara, Celia, me and the world. I love writing that.