Unboxing South Dakota: What It's Like Living In South Dakota

is south dakota cold okay we already know the answer to that one is south dakota hip okay we already know the answer that one too and can you ski in south dakota now we're gonna talk about that and a whole lot more people so let's hop up on this pony hey girl we're gonna unbox the state of south dakota ah mount rushmore one of the most recognizable monuments in the united states there's four presidents carved by dynamite in the side of that mountain that's george washington our founding father thomas jefferson who helped our country expand and grow theodore roosevelt the conservationist and abraham lincoln who got us through the civil war each of their faces is 60 feet high it took 400 men and 14 years to finish this masterpiece although a lot of that time was spent standing around and no one died which is amazing every year more than 2 million people visit this landmark which is way more than double this whole state's population it's a national treasure mount rushmore is and it's for what this state is most well known for but south dakota has a lot of other cool stuff too and it's pretty misunderstood or not understood at all or even thought about from the outside you might think south dakota seems like a strange place who are these mysterious people what do they do where do they live how many are in their species are they farmers do they have plumbing if south dakota's been on your mind lately or do you think you might even move here one day well then you should know what you're getting yourself into there mister because it's no joke when it comes to outdoors weather and politics where you live will define your experience here so we should explore the state from top to bottom and west to east to see what this vast state is all about this is south dakota now you could divide south dakota up into different ways i suppose but there's no better way to divide this state up than like this the west side of the river and the east side of the river and the river is the missouri river which cuts just about right through the middle of this place these two sides are very different from one another if you moved here you'd be able to tell which side somebody is from just by the way they talk we're going to begin our journey on the western side of the state or west river or as they call it here west river is very much the cowboys ranchers tough macho men part of the state i'm sure the women are macho here too there's lots of rednecks here and lots of independent minded conservative don't touch my gun get off my land chew spitters they're very wary of outsiders and kinda don't identify with those on the other side of the state out east kind of makes sense folks out this way are the way they are i mean this is where the wild west began where men duked it out and shot it out over women gold and poker this is also the very rugged and mountainous side of the state too west river also gets up much earlier too half of south dakota is on mountain time and half is on central time these tough men get up before the rest of the state does pour a cup of dark coffee out of an old metal pot and wrangle cattle sheep horses or whatever livestock they have on hand ranching is huge in these parts south dakota ranks seventh in the nation for a number of heads of cattle and south dakota ranchers produce five percent of this nation's cattle overall there's five heads of cattle for every person in this state it's much drier out in western south dakota so many of the farms out this way produce crops like alfalfa sunflowers wheat beans and taters for the most part what isn't farms mountains or native american reservations on this side of state is going to be teeny towns of a couple hundred people but that's nowhere you'd likely want to live most of the population and everything going on west river is going to be down here in the bottom corner of the state rapid city is the biggest place to live in this side of state there's 75 000 people here along the foothills of the black hills there's a lot of outdoorsy people who live here who like to get back into them lar hills mountain bikers snowshoers hikers fishermen and women and even skiers make this place home that's right there's two places you can ski in south dakota the one is a thousand feet tall and one is 190 feet tall you can ski on a hill that's 190 feet tall there's sort of a nightlife here in rapid city but odds are you're gonna see the same people over and over at the limited number of bars and restaurants in town that's okay you're here for the outdoors anyways come on now rapid city has green belts and parks all over encouraging people to be outside jobs wise and ain't pretty in rapid city a lot of the jobs are centered around ag and tourism and you'd definitely be taking a 25 to 50 thousand dollar pay cut if you lived here but it's way cheaper here too the average home price in rapid city is about 250 k and rents like 700 bucks crime is mostly petty stuff there's an area on the north end that's got a lot of low-income housing if you moved here you probably don't want to live on the north end of town it's really pretty here the whole area is sheltered by the black hills so it's warmer and it's not as windy or snowy like it is in the rest of the state the only other city on this whole side of the state with more than ten thousand people is spearfish here on the far northern end of the mountains it's a great little place to live and it's actually a college town home to black hill state university enrollment 3600 if you're into the outdoors church and are white you would love it if you're not you might not it's also more expensive here than any other place in the state where homes are like 330k but come on now it's not that much right the most expensive place in south dakota but talk about some real lack of diversity lease beer fish and go up into some small mountain towns up here like leed or deadwood deadwood is home to 1200 people and it's known as being the historic wild west gold mining saloon town where you could get a date get some booze get some drugs and get into a gunfight in deadwood these days they're still gambling and they reenact those old gun battles you probably wouldn't want to live here or maybe you would belfooch up here only has 5000 or so folks there's really nothing going on here and it's kind of a bad reputation in west river then there's sturgis which does have a lot going on well at least for 10 days in august every summer like 500 000 motorcycle enthusiasts and other people flock here and take the whole place over it's a really big deal for the state but again you likely wouldn't want to live here overall most of western south dakota is just teeny towns and cheap living south dakota is one of only seven states without an income tax and when combined with low property taxes the state has the seventh lowest tax burden of all states there's really no place like it but if you're going to live out west you're likely going to have to be retired get a government job or work from home but just because there aren't a lot of places to live in west river doesn't mean there aren't a lot of cool things to do here you may not know it but south dakota has the tallest mountains east of the rockies these are the black hills within them is the black elk peak which towers over this whole region at 7 200 feet the black hills are surrounded by a lot of short grass prairie and across the prairie is badlands national park now this whole area is 250 000 acres of rock formations of all sorts of colors it's like a mini grand canyon up here in the high plains this is also home to the world's largest cave rock formation 200 miles of underground passageways of the most intertwined and densest cave system in the world the badlands is super cool to explore but really dangerous too especially in the summer there's animals all over here you know elk bighorn sheep mountain goat antelope deer donkeys that sort of stuff and of course buffalo or bison there's large herds in western south dakota that cause traffic jams but i'm sure you'd rather sit behind this than this and of course we have mount rushmore here everybody in south dakota has been a mount rushmore have you ever been to mount rushmore i have have you ever visited mount rushmore yeah well at least two people have the mount rushmore sculptures at the top of a 57-foot granite bluff they call it the shrine of democracy sometimes they have to fill in cracks which form along its face but it's only going to erode at a rate of an inch every 10 000 years so you know there's plenty of time to see it if you haven't seen it yet and it's free as long as you don't have a car to park another interesting sculpture here is on the other side of the black hills about 18 miles away this is the crazy horse memorial dedicated to preserving the culture of the native americans who lived here crazy horse was a lakota war leader of the aglala band of native americans who fought off u.s expansion in south dakota and helped win several key battles for his people including the one at little bighorn in 1876. sitting bull was another native american war hero but he didn't get a statue however this monument will probably never be done people they started making this in 1948 and they're barely on the face part but if you're here in 2150 you might be able to see what's supposed to one day be the world's largest stone sculpture come on south dakota finish this thing already far less impressive in this part of the state is south dakota's well-known tourist trap wall drug which is a four block long trinket bazaar thing where you can eat buffalo burgers donuts and even ride a real not real jackalope they also entice people to visit by handing out free ice water native americans are a huge part of this state there's nine total reservations in south dakota and most are on the state's western side south dakota is 85 white and it's also 10 native american the pine ridge reservation here is the nation's 7th largest however life here is outright poor in fact if you measure poverty in terms of income this is the poorest place in the nation and 70 percent of kids never finish high school on the pine ridge indian reservation what's the solution for that the rest of this side of the state's just wide open vast stretch is prairie i know the first thing you're probably wondering is where's the damn walmart they have walmarts here just like everybody else and no they don't drive conestoga wagons or ride horses to walmart they have beat up pickups just like everybody else in this part of the country they're trying to get people to move here i mean there certainly is a lot of room one time a while back the state ran a sarcastic campaign to try to draw in new residents it didn't really work mars the air not breathable the surface cold and barren but thousands are lining up for a chance to go and never come back south dakota progressive productive and abundant in oxygen why die on mars when you can live in south dakota south dakota you can live here and that's not the first poorly executed campaign the state's done it also did a don't jerk and drive campaign to tell people to drive safely in snow and that was made fun of and the latest one is geared towards solving the state's growing meth problem i'm on meth i'm on myth i'm on it too so am i so am i i'm on math i'm on math meth is not someone else's problem it's everyone in south dakota's problem and we need everyone to get on it i'm on it i'm on it i'm on it too [Music] it's very much a gun friendly state south dakota is more than half a resident's own a gun but it's likely for hunting more than anything else crime here is mostly robberies i mean the state only saw 12 murders last year that's what st louis gets in a weekend pop quiz everyone do you think in st louis you can leave your car running while you duck in to get some bait no in memphis can you leave your front door unlocked while you head out to catch a bear no here you can instead of using guns on people all that lead is more used on pheasant elk and bison than anything else or coyotes coyotes are in season every day of the year here poor coyotes but i mean they're a bunch of meat-eaters on this side of the state if you're going to find any vegetables on a dinner plate it's likely going to be on the other side of the river if out west is all cowboys and conservatives then the eastern side of the state's far more progressive and city slickers well cities in a sense that all the biggest places to live in the state are on the flat side and east river most aren't really very big though the east side is much flatter and gets more rain much of this side of the state is devoted to farming i mean 90 percent of the whole state's in farmland a lot of east river is in wheat and corn and soybeans south dakota sure knows how to feed themselves and they feed us too the tractor culture is strong here fella they hold tractor races and they go on tractor runs for charity like they'll do a 60-mile race on a damp tractor how long does that take and if you move here in case you care you'd find out quickly there's a big rivalry between john deere versus case so john deere or case oh definitely john deere john deere why's that i like green better they don't run better otherwise many of these small towns on this side of the state have what are called rural route mailing addresses i mean lots of places your nearest neighbors miles away an example is little peever population 168 and that's a lot for south dakota in town it's a liquor store you gotta have that a church you gotta have that a post office also a must a hardware store and a tractor dealer home of the panthers looks quiet enough one place here has two people it's called lily do they know each other both people are they married maybe they should be here's a place called cottonwood where nine people live want to live here it's about 120 k for a house looks really pretty i'm sure they know each other very well just like every other state south dakota has four seasons we don't really have fall or spring it's pretty much just winter and summer okay maybe not but as you might expect it's going to be very windy and snowy in the winter here snow piles don't even begin to melt until may but if you move here eventually when it is 40 degrees you'll maybe even wear shorts once you got used to it summers can be brutally hot and well over 100 degrees for long stretches every state has its quirks and if you move here you got to know the lingo south dakotans don't say coyotes they say coyotes they don't wrestle they wrestle and you don't swim in a creek you swim in a creek something isn't pretty near it's pertineer like this job here is pertineer down for some reason they call sloppy joes barbecue sandwiches or taverns and you don't eat a tavern for dinner you eat one for supper and better have a casserole on hand too just in case your neighbor stops by for a chat over here is the famous corn palace everyone it's an entire sporting arena made of corn every year they cover the place with a different corn design sounds lame but a half million people come to see it every year but enough all that you want to know where you can live in east river right well you could live at the state capital pier i know it looks like you call it pierre but you don't for state capital pier is boring there's only fourteen thousand people here but it's still the eighth most populated place in this darn tootin state unless you work for the government it's likely you won't find this place very appealing in fact 20 years ago this was the suicide capital the nation per capita and south dakota suicide rate is double that of new york's what is going on currently pierre is home to christy gnome perhaps the hottest governor in our nation's history she's very republican and some say she might make a run at the white house one day she'd certainly get the mail vote as a whole the state is republican very white and very christian if you are not into those things you're welcome to come here but you'd be a tiny minority this is watertown population 23 000 outside of spearfish that mountain town we saw earlier this is the most expensive place you can live in south dakota i don't know why it's just kind of yeah there's a lot of drug use over here is brookings most notably home to south dakota state university they're pretty good at football there's 24 000 people here making it the fourth biggest city in the state for south dakota standards this place is fun and you get a nice home in a safe place with a huge yard for 250k they got you covered for groceries bars and walmart and brookings but it's gonna be an hour to get to actual shopping but that's why we have amazon prime right people the other big college town here is in vermillion population 11 000. this is where the university of south dakota is outside of the native american reservations it's the only real liberal place in the state and jobs are going to be tough here too i mean i'd say you could be a teacher but this state is practically the lowest paid for teachers so there's that i mean if you're going to live on this side of the state you might as well live in an actual city right that brings us to the biggest and most massive place you can live in south dakota sioux falls 30 percent of this whole state lives here in sioux land way out by the iowa and minnesota borders sioux falls is the place for good jobs in this state and by good jobs i mean jobs like something besides cleaning up horse poop or serving dairy queen south dakota and wyoming are the only two states that don't have corporate income tax so a lot of banks and corporations have set up shop here in sioux falls one time forbes even called sioux falls the best place for business and careers that study took into account growth quality of life and education of the workforce the unemployment rate here is super low and this metro area has transformed itself from an agriculture-based economy to one centered around healthcare and finance there's even technology here like for a while sioux falls folks made these balloons that google used to bring internet to rural areas sure there's not big skyscrapers and there's not traffic everywhere but it's still a lively urban center where there's a lot to do and there's places to shop at and eat and they have these new craft cocktail bars and a sculpture walk and even a waterfall park right in the middle of downtown and they have two 10 000 seat arenas downtown some say sioux falls is the best small city in america that you haven't been to in terms of where to live here the south part of town's the best the west side of town is worst in terms of crime and run down areas but come on crime and run down for sioux falls is nothing like the bad parts of town where you live you can get a home here for like 250k that seems to be the average price for a home pretty much everywhere else in this whole state now doesn't it so we covered many parts of east river as we did many parts of west river but we left one thing out which side's best well it's a big debate here and something south dakotans on both sides say is serious business let's run some metrics out west the sun comes up first and they're early risers you know the whole time zone thing overalls versus suits mountains versus flat ranchers versus farmers skiing versus not skiing mount rushmore versus the corn palace i think it's pretty clear which side is better what do you think let us know in the comments below south dakota is a state that's very underrated this date is certainly worthy of your attention it's a beautiful state with well-grounded solid no-nonsense folks with a solid work ethic and a kindness that you won't find in many other states they have a live and let live attitude here but they'll also show up and help you out in a pinch too it's likely the strong conservative values the low cost of living and the low crime that make it such a special place and there's tough to do here too you've got all the outdoor stuff out west and the art music and culture out east if you live here you're going to make friends with people who will post a bunch of pictures of sunsets sometimes every day but you'll never get sick of seeing them because like a snowflake not one south dakota sunset is the same well that was pretty cool wasn't it we learned a lot about south dakota didn't we we figured out where you should live if you moved here and why this state is worthy of your attention and along the way we learned some history of mount rushmore talk to local residents and solve the west versus east river debate south dakota can be a warm and inviting place or it can be a cold and bleak place it all depends on you and while you east river folks lost to the west river folks at least you can lay your heads down on your cold pills at night knowing that at least you don't live in north [Music] in south dakota you can have your funny little farming redneck crew in south dakota you can be a cowboy or a cattle ranch too mountains prairie's kind of scary there's a lot of exploring you can do one big city and a woman who looks like she wouldn't go for you south dakota you are so big and you are so very far away south dakota you are empty and your people really want to stay south dakota you are so big and you are so very far away south dakota you are empty and your people really want to stay hey guys if you learned something new about america or what it's like to live in america great you should think about subscribing and turning on your notifications you can also click one of these videos or playlists for more you can also now buy my songs on itunes and other formats click the link in the description thanks for watching and remember while we all might have different views we should all be nice to each other and try to make the us a better place in a positive way this is sage nyx manager this has been a cornerhouse entertainment production and are you looking to move and need advice i do consulting that's right i'll sit down and talk about where the next perfect place for you and your family should be i do it all the time together let's find you a new home that's safe and checks all your boxes you can get my email in the description to find out how i can help you find your perfect relocation so give me an idea on sioux falls where the good and bad places are in sioux falls uh there aren't really many bad places like if you compare it to like any of the other big cities like minneapolis or chicago like the worst neighborhood is probably like average for there in terms of like crime and just shady like you don't want to be around there yeah where's the good part of town where do all the safe neighborhoods where all the where the crime is the lowest where the you know the the who's who people live yeah um i would say a lot of that is on like the east and south sides pretty much just all of the edges except the north side yeah so yeah so um i have some questions that i prepared for you all right uh do people in south dakota have the internet yeah yeah we do okay clearly what do your people eat um i would say like the most common meals are like burgers you know mac and cheese kind of classic american like barbecue chis lick is pretty big out here actually so yeah that's like our kind of like our state dish besides herding cattle or picking corn what do your people do for fun um a lot of fishing and like just time out on the lake like boating i personally enjoy hiking quite a bit hunting's also another big one uh yeah like pheasant deer hunting goose even yeah have you ever driven a tractor or do you know someone who has yeah uh yeah i've driven one a couple times but i don't live on a farm so i have friends that do and i have there a couple times but not regularly so john deere or case oh definitely john deere john deere all right do you hate north dakota or wish them any ill will no not really they're kind of like i mean there's like a little bit of a friendly rivalry but for the most part we hate iowa uh and north dakota is kind of like our friend we joke that it's basically canada a lot but that's about it why do you guys hate iowa stinks like pigs i guess i don't know it's kind of just like uh well from where i'm from in sioux falls the nearest big city like comparable in size is sioux city and so we just have like a little bit of a rivalry with them in like sports and stuff so yeah um have you ever been to mount rushmore i have yeah i have a couple times mostly when i was a kid i try and avoid it now because it's just really popular and a little tacky mount rushmore's tacky yeah that's like sacrilege how can you say that about your your state's most famous like icon i don't know i just think it's personally a little overrated i'm glad that it exists because it draws all the people who go out there to that and then they're not around like the woods and stuff more but i don't know the badlands and just the rest of the black hills are better in my opinion what year was mount rushmore built uh 1927 to 1942 is when it was interesting all right that's pretty good what is the name of the guy who carved it uh gutson borglum dang uh do you know who's on mount rushmore yeah yeah it's washington lincoln jefferson and roosevelt so like that's pretty good do most people know those facts or are you just like mount rushmore nerdy guy um i would say everyone knows who's on it for sure uh most people know who made it and if you'd probably ask like the everyday south dakotan like when it was founded they'd probably just say somewhere in the 40s like when it was made i mean yeah yeah yeah so um is the weather terrible is the weather terrible in south dakota uh it really depends we don't really have fall or spring it's pretty much just winter and summer uh i would say for the most part in the summer it's just hot and a little humid but we get some pretty big rainstorms but the worst is in the winter also there's some tornadoes in the summer but pretty rare compared to like nebraska or kansas and then in the winter we do get a couple blizzards each year and then uh a couple ice storms maybe two do you have any good weather stories about south dakota um when i was like eight we uh our mites like small town got hit by an ice storm uh and we had didn't have power for four days so yeah what did you guys do for warmth um we just had candles and uh we had a fire in our backyard for some of the time um did you burn like did you have to burn your mattress or did you have to eat like knees for a week or whatever uh no we just actually there were a bunch of trees that got taken down by the ice storm too so we just used that wood to burn it yeah i mean we were mostly fun on food we could still like walk to the grocery store and stuff yeah you look like a normal person like you know i you you blend in like i wouldn't even real really be able to tell you're from south dakota if i just bumped into you on the street right yeah can you give me an idea on the the rivalry between the west river and east river oh yeah um i would say that's way bigger than our beef with north dakota um i'm from east river i have a good friend who grew up west river but then like moved to sioux falls uh and it's all friendly really we just give him crap about like no one lives out there and it's just like pretty much just cattle so i don't know um so which one's better east river or west river i like east river for the culture and just like the feel of being there but for vacation i go out to the black hills pretty much as much as i can so i would say east river just because i'm from there but if i was from west river i could definitely make a case for them too tell me tell me uh like a joke or something that you guys say about west river besides nobody lives there and it's cattle like you guys like clown him um it's basically wyoming i mean i don't know there are a lot of cowboys it's like modern cowboy country there isn't much of that left in the country so i don't know just also like the internet you know just do they even have it there the answer is no some of the time but so what do they say about you guys uh i mean we just have corn and cattle pretty much it's flat it's pretty easy to make fun of just flat corn and cattle you know yeah well they have cattle and you have cattle but they they only have cattle and we like are mostly corn and soybeans but there's some cattle sprinkled in there right yeah yeah give me that where are you right now i can tell you're on a windy plain like a grass-swept prairie yeah i'm actually in uh estes park colorado right now oh you're not in south dakota no i'm on vacation right now that's funny because because like i i can't tell what's going on but i'm getting like the windswept high plains prairie vibe like with the wind and i'm like oh and i thought you were gonna pan to like a beautiful butte with like cattle and like you know windmills in the background and instead it's like a hotel in colorado yeah well thank you for uh giving me an insight i mean you know i i feel like south dakota is like either a misunderstood state or not even thought about it all right like i would i would agree with you there yeah but it's actually you know a really good place right tell like can you can you give people an idea on what they would expect to move to see if they move there what they would expect to experience um yeah i would say like the two places that i would like encourage people to move to from out of state are rapid city and sioux falls um rapid city is like really outdoorsy like more of a mountain feel and it's like right at the foot of the black hills um there's a lot of native people out there um so it's got like a little bit of a different feel than the rest of the state but and then sioux falls is like just you know it's a pretty safe city uh really good to like raise a family there are a lot of like banking companies that are moving out there with a bunch of job growth and the whole city's doubled in size since the 90s so yeah how has south dakota changed since you remember or what do people say about south dakota is like this now it's like this or it's changing is there anything uh to that at all uh i would say for the most part the it's like it was just a bunch of small prairie towns you know and like a couple like medium-sized cities but like now for the most part i mean the rest of the state has more or less stayed the same but sioux falls especially has grown a lot and it's like coming more into its own as like an actual city and not just like the place where all the south dakotans live you know yeah yeah i mean it sounds like the only downfall to living in sioux falls would just be the cold winters right i mean is there any other bad thing about living in sioux falls i i don't know i would say i mean compared to the rest of the country it's still pretty conservative um so you know if that's something that you're not really down with there's that i'm down with that yeah uh i don't really mind it i mean because i've grown up around it but i do disagree with them quite a bit but i mean it's just part of living out here um i don't know i would say like traveling to concerts and stuff is a little bit more of a chore or like going to you know have more of the big city amenities you got to go to at least omaha but even then they don't have everything so the twin cities is like where we go for you know ikea or like our big shopping trips or concerts or stuff like that okay so if you want to watch uh the killers or shop at ikea you have to go to minneapolis yeah so what about the politics do you not agree with you kind of you hinted at that are you liberal leaning and it's more of a conservative vibe there i would say i'm more left-leaning for south dakota but like still pretty middle of the road for the rest of the country just like i don't know it seems like our government's a little backwards sometimes the south dakota government yeah like give me give me an idea what you mean uh like the people in the 2020 election uh we had recreational marijuana put on the ballot for uh it was an initiated measure so it was like put on the ballot by the people because they wanted it um and then they voted for it and it passed but our governor uh struck it down and like brought lawsuits against it basically to like stop us from getting what we wanted christy gnome did that yeah man i thought she was so cool too yeah yeah a lot of people think that but i don't know like personally just from living in south dakota like she doesn't really it seems like she's more focused on like you know building up to run for president or something instead of worrying about like the safety and needs of her own people a little bit yeah that's not cool i i had put her on such a pedestal already and thought she was hot stuff literally and now yeah you know looks looks to be like a regular old politician all right well i have some questions for you that i i came up with uh first of all what part of south dakota do you live in uh i lived uh in two falls sioux falls okay uh what what do your people eat what do we eat yeah a lot of it is people will just buy a whole cow or half a cow and then when they're set on like meat for the rest of like the year or whatever but yeah or corn it's we try to pretty much eat local yeah but besides uh hurting cattle or picking corn what do your people do for fun well i guess there's a big difference between east river and west river uh west river you can go like uh like black hills area dead lands all that that's that's the best part of the state honestly uh east river it's a lot of gambling and a lot of uh a lot of drinking and stuff yeah have you ever driven a tractor or do you know anybody that has yeah i drove i i driven a tractor okay uh john deere or case uh john deere why is that like green better they don't run better otherwise do you hate north dakota or wish them any ill will you know i don't wish them oh well i just don't want them to do better than south dakota have you ever visited mount rushmore yeah yeah what year was what year was mount rushmore built i want to say it was probably built didn't uh wasn't that built in like the early 30s or something yeah that's pretty cool stuff yeah i was like like 20s or 30s around there 1920s 30s do you know who built it my history teacher's gonna kill me when she sees this uh i it was some guy that loved dynamite i remember that he he just kind of lived up there and just blew stuff up out there so i don't remember his name huh yeah it sounds like a lot of people out there yeah you know do you know who's don mount rushmore you can tell me that right uh george washington uh abraham lincoln is it uh franklin d roosevelt i can't remember who else is on there dang i don't get to go there much oh is the weather terrible in south dakota no in the winters it's severe it's like negative with a wind chill it gets to negative 30 in the winter with the wind chill but in the summer it gets 90 100 degrees yeah can you tell me a good winter story about a uh a weather story up there in south dakota a good weather story uh i guess uh there was once it was like a friday this was just a few years ago it was um it snowed probably about two feet it was just wicked winds and everything uh and work let me go early because there's no travel advisory and i guess uh i was just helping people shovel their driveways and stuff and i found uh two people overdosing on heroin and i gave them cpr and uh helped resuscitate them or kept them alive until the ambulance came and gave him narcan this wasn't what so it started out like a weather storm but now this is different where was this at this was in sioux falls so people is drugs a big deal or is it just like a random i mean is it common to find people strung out in sioux falls it's more of uh there's more people um like meth or booze once in a while you'll find people on heroin and they just passed out but so they were passed out in a snow bank and you found them oh you know like uh i i started knocking on the door and uh because i was done shoveling their driveway and i went in and their face faces were blue and yeah i just gave them cpr the ambulance came like mouth mouth or just like cpr it's just chest compressions wow i worked at the hospital for about five years so uh they got lucky that i knew how to do that stuff yeah man and then the fire department showed up with narcan and pricked them and then they were they like woke up is that how it works uh they i've probably saved about probably about six people but uh they they hit them with narcan sometimes they don't wake up right away and how it was configured they carried them out in a bag and i thought they're they're dead but uh i guess they survived but they carried him away in the ambulance good thing i shoveled because the ambulance would have been able to get up that driveway so you shoveled a pathway for the fire department and went in gave cpr called them and then allowed them to get in and out of there dang dude that's like uh were you supposed to show up and like do their driveway for them is that was that the deal i do a lot of side jobs like that yeah people out yeah yeah so how old were they about 20. and did they ever like thank you did you ever see him again uh uh yeah they thanked me uh i saw um a few weeks later but well i guess one of them thanked me the other one he didn't really i mean that's pretty embarrassing yeah hey man thanks for uh thanks for saving my life buddy yeah i i usually don't do that much heroin but that day i did i always end up having to do that stuff i had to give uh one time my dad was having a heart attack i had to give him a ride to the hospital uh when he was yeah and then we caught a train on the way there so after that that kind of tormented me so i kind of started driving where new trains weren't going to be because that was just always triggers bad memories just waiting in line for the train so going back to one of these another four what what's it what's one example of the other four like similar thing you went to a buddy's house and he was overdosed or like how did you guys okay hey hey they because yeah they know i'm good with like healthcare stuff technically because i worked at the hospital for so long yeah yeah but uh yeah it just uh you find someone and they're passed out their face is blue they're not getting any air you just give them cpr until they'd get air but if you got narcan that would save a lot of trouble but i never i think here you have to have a prescription for it it's south dakota is kind of corrupt with that kind of stuff they don't just hand it out all willy-nilly like they're corrupt with narcan well like they they passed the legalized weed here last election and it was like 60 percent of people wanted it and christinom the governor was like no no no we're all about personal responsibility but we're not about giving people the option to smoke a little little weed but it's hot in my it's hot in my studio right now i'll tell you that so where are you at i'm in north carolina oh okay uh well actually no i'm in south dakota no uh for real though um what do you what so what do you what do south dakotans think of the rest of the country i mean you're up there all isolated where it's all peaceful and quiet somewhat sounds like not all the way but you know meanwhile in big cities and the rest of america you know that we have some really bad days at times what do you guys think of the rest of us being all up there all isolated well we don't think about much we're driving down the interstate 80 miles an hour like soon we'll be able to smoke legalize weed and yeah i don't know it's its own world up here i'll give you that but there's like omaha's a few hours away and then minneapolis and st paul was pretty close too so yeah yeah so you live in sioux falls so i got to ask you east river or west river which one's better and why west river because there's more to do out there i know my east river people are gonna be mad at me but i gotta be honest my heart's west river yeah did you grow up out there there's a yeah it's just deadwood you can go out to the because you can gamble out there and then uh because it's who falls you gotta go all the way to iowa to gamble unless it's one of those like cheap machines like five minutes away though uh it's the one eldest who falls is about 20 30 minutes away but it's i don't like driving that route because so many people are drinking and driving so you'll drive all the way to deadwood to gamble no no i'll drive out to iowa prefer to do that but if i have the option to be west river or east river i choose west river yeah it sounds like a much better place to me yeah yeah there's a lot of uh the homeless isn't that bad in south dakota but yeah they're kind of they're a lot cleaner here than i've seen in like minneapolis or omaha yeah for sure yeah you're lucky that you get to live in a clean relatively safe place man wide open cheap good man thank you for uh joining me and to talk about south dakota you look like a regular person you don't look like you're from south dakota i really do not south dakota people look like everybody else i guess huh i guess they do don't they i didn't know what i was expecting here where where what part of south dakota are you in uh i'm from the black hills i'm in whitewood south dakota right now oh so you're on the west river side there huh yep uh tell me which side is better west river or east river as someone was born and raised i gotta say west river but yeah i think you've got someone from east river they're gonna say east river no everybody i talked to said your size better really yeah i'm actually kind of nailing that and they're all on the east side of missouri too i know i think about it i can see that yeah your side's better west west river all the way yeah so give me an idea on so what's it like out there in on the west side of uh one of the finest states in america it's pretty small town stuff lots of outdoors activities lots of tough mountain macho men oh absolutely um well lots of there are plenty of things to do hunting fishing me and my dad were actually going to go fishing tonight but it actually got too cold unfortunately um it's wow it's actually like 30 degrees outside right now with the oh man it's like may 30th or something oh yeah it gets crazy the weather here is ridiculous it can either be got the fluctuations here were pretty ridiculous you can go from you know up to like you know 90 in the summer up down to like you know just some like this winter down in like in january when they had that cold front it reached negative 20 negative 30 at one point i think it can be ridiculous so uh give me an idea what do you what do you do for fun besides outdoor stuff if i lived in west river and i'm not into outdoor fishing hunting hiking what am i going to do for fun if you want to have some fun there are plenty of things you can do personally one of my favorite things to do is uh i mean there's plenty of things you can do one of my favorite things to do is uh i mean most of the things you can do around here are outdoor personally but uh for fun there's uh escape rooms are one of my favorite things to do personally obviously but i think those are available just about anywhere but um there are plenty of places to visit you know i'm in the black hills you can go visit mount rushmore obviously um there's museums um there's lots of places you can go if you don't or if you want to stay inside um there's honestly since this is such an outdoorsy state there isn't a lot you can do inside it's this state is more for people that are more based you know like more for people that want to be outdoors yeah so why do you live there then um because i was born here yeah you ever think about leaving are you gonna stick around there jordan um i think i'm gonna stick around yeah i like it here i do you know you could go out and um try to escape out of the badlands wouldn't that be fun true you definitely could maybe so give me an idea on what south dakotans think of the rest of america i think a lot of south dakotans think that the rest of the country is ignorant that they don't uh know a lot about the interior part of the country from experience my mom's uh boyfriend spent 20 years in the navy in norfolk virginia and he had to constantly explain to people where south dakota even is um every person i've known here has had to has received questions from people asking do we still ride horses to school um the answer to that is no we do there are people here that ride horses there are ranches i mean even outside of the biggest cities in the state you know uh even right out there you can literally drive 10 minutes outside of rapid city the second biggest city in the state and you're going to run into cattle grazing like but yeah but i mean not not what we think of you what does what do you think of the rest of the country in terms of the politics the stuff going on with you know there's a lot of crime there's a lot of homeless everywhere there's a lot of you know america's not doing very well right now um but you guys are way way way away so what do you think of us um i think a lot of people in south dakota don't really think about it i think we like to think about our problems here um which honestly we don't have a ton of the problems in south dakota only mainly resolve revolve around uh problems on the reservation with poverty and stuff like that um which i'm i'm going to admit i don't know a lot about but that's what i would that's what i know a lot of the problems will revolve around do you ever go to the reservations um not personally but i know my dad is a member of one of the reservations hey dad which member of the reservation which reservation are you a member of yeah yeah my dad is a member of standing rock uh reservation oh okay what did he think about the pipeline uh did he go up to the when they had the protests and they lived there for like four or five months oh yeah my dad actually is in support of the pipeline a lot of people here are in support of the keystone pipeline because it creates jobs in the area okay but he's he's a member of standing rock but he's for the pipeline yeah he is okay because most most of the standing rock people i know yeah i know most of them are not but my dad is good well i am too all right that's interesting your dad and i would get along just swell i think so too yeah so have you ever shot a gun jordan oh every summer absolutely oh okay my dad owns tons of guns there are my dad has dad how many guns do you have a lot should i interview your dad no no you don't i know we don't talk about how many guns we own but we yeah that's that's probably not smart so uh horses do you ever ride horses um i've never ridden a horse before but i know people that have do you have you ever been on a tractor jordan oh i have not i've always lived in the city like in not really the city but in a town like you know i've never really lived on a ranch before that's probably why i've looked more that's probably why i look more you know like how you would expect someone from south dakota to look because i've not really you know been on a ranch before i don't really i never really grew up on a ranch i look you know more modern i think would be a way to put it okay yeah so um do you ever go to mount rushmore yes have you been to mount rushmore oh absolutely i literally live 30 minutes from rushmore so what year was it built ooh in the 20s i believe i don't even remember it's kind of close do you know who built it uh german guy i can't remember its name yeah it was built by immigrants i was built with the uh it was built with uh immigrants with a system of uh pulleys by i can't remember what it was called yeah i i have a basic idea but it was really i didn't go into my rush for the first time until i was like 10. so jobs-wise there's not a lot of jobs on your in your area what are you going to do for when you after you finish school and you want to get a professional life going jordan oh that's a good question um for my professional life i'm not 100 sure i'm thinking i'm probably going to leave the state to go to college but then i think i'm probably going to come back because i think i will be able to find a profession here in state for what i want to do what do you want to do um atmospheric science okay is that studying like meteorology like meteorology meteorology like you want to be in like a weather man kind of like i was thinking like a setting weather patterns like more like a behind the scenes like a national weather service type of stuff okay so what do you think about global warming um i think like do i think it exists or do i think it's uh whatever i think global warming is a like i think global warming is caused by man-made activity um i think global warming is in fact something we need to be significantly worried about because of human you know influences especially with influences such as carbon emissions and i think we need to look at potentials not just prevention methods such as what with we need to look at even having a solution such as carbon sequestration or something like that where we can take carbon we put out of the air or we can we can take carbon we put in the air and take it out of the atmosphere but we need to look at investing in the technology to do that that's what i think about global warming we need like remembering spaceballs when they had the vacuum sucking lady that had the vacuum cleaner that sucked the air out of the atmosphere did you see space walls i have not but i think i know what you're talking about yeah you should watch that movie yeah so what would you like to see different in your state i mean you're a young kid you don't really have a lot of perspective on how the state used to be in the old days but you have a say in how you think the state will be in the future what would you like to see more of in south dakota who i'd like to see more diversity in south dakota i like i think we need to see um yeah i think we need more diversity especially in some of our more uh urban areas like you know rapid city in sioux falls especially i can't really speak to sioux falls but especially rapid city i think like uh not not necessarily with native americans but with people of african-american descent and uh you know latino descent i think we need more people of diversity in our state i think we need to work on um mixing people of diversity in because it's very very very white here how do you think you can entice african americans and hispanics to come to your state that is a good question and i have i don't have an idea on how to do that um there's probably a way you can do that i don't know how yeah are you bored there do you like it there i like it here uh sometimes it can be boring but i think it's fun here boring is a good thing sometimes oh yeah because you don't have to deal with you know all the major problems in the other places yeah all right well i got one more question so john deere or case you gotta go with john deere come on who drives a case tractor anyway right exactly come on all righty well hey man i appreciate you joining me yeah of course thank you so this is going to be on probably a little part of it will be on the video at some point so yeah all right thank you all right jordan have a good one kid yeah you too woohoo giddy up

Channel: Nick Johnson

Views: 268,131

Keywords: living in South Dakota, South Dakota, what is South Dakota like, South Dakota research, i live in South Dakota, South Dakota travel, what is South Dakota, South Dakota trivia, why do people live in South Dakota, South Dakota map, South Dakota residents, South Dakota culture, South Dakota cost of living, moving to South Dakota, South Dakota realtor, South Dakota mortgage loan, South Dakota vacation, rapid city, sioux falls, sturgis, mount rushmore, badlands, corn palace, farms

Id: LCOGW5dvuuc

Length: 60min 51sec (3651 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 08 2021