Why the hell?!?!

So as I travelled back from New Jersey on Black Friday I sat next to a woman on my flight to Dallas and we got into a conversation. It was innocent enough, she asked me a few wedding related questions (I was pouring over the new winter issue of The Knot!) and then she asked an innocent question, "is your fiancé on the plane too?" When I told her no that we were doing the long distance thing because he lived near Philadelphia and I lived in South Dakota I should have expected her reaction. A very astonished "South Dakota! Who would ever want to live there??"

I've been asked a variation of this question many times since I made the decision to uproot my life and make the trek halfway across the country but her question was slightly different, it asked why would anyone want to move there not just me. I answered my typical answer that I received a job offer and took it because hey, sometimes a job is hard to find now a days. But after our conversation died down I began to roll the question over in my mind.

Why would anyone want to move to South Dakota? I think back to the late 1800's, the state is vast and largely untamed prarie lorded over by the Oglala Lakota and the Sioux. Both tribes have made it very clear that white settlers are not welcome in these parts. So what drove people to move out here? To pack every belonging they had and brave the trek out to this wilderness. To those who has just come across the unforgiving prairies the Black Hills must have been a welcome site, a resources lush area jutting out of the flat landscape.

I know why Deadwood was inhabited, there were stories of gold in the hills and thousands of men flocked to the town to try their luck at mining. Rough and tough men of all kinds able to handle the tough winter and blistering summers of the Midwest. But what of the families that followed them in later years? Why would they risk everything to move into hostile territory?

I would like to think it was a sense of adventure, or maybe just a knowledge that the cities would soon be no good for them anymore. Maybe it was to lay claim to their own land? I'm sure it was all those reasons and then some. Ask yourself, what would cause you to take a chance like the people who headed to the Dakota territories?

My answer to most people is simple as to why I took this job and moved, because it was there and it was a good opportunity. However, I'd like to think there was more at play. I am a descendant of one of those brave souls who packed their family up and headed west to South Dakota. They set up a general store in a town just 15 minutes from where I sit now. Perhaps it is their legacy running through my veins that drew me back to this land. Or perhaps it is my adventurous spirit that decided that this could be a great adventure. Either way I find myself content here in the hills, out where the sky is clear, the people are genuine, and there is buffalo meat on every menu in town.