Hey Guys and yeah another one of those threads.  Currently in NC but want to get west of the Mississippi.  SD looks real good to me.  Since we are older, we need to be closer to town than I'd like but that's how it is.  So looking for something on the outskirts of Rapid City or Sioux Falls.  I know this whole east river/west river thing. I am torn between a mid-west and western setting.  

Sounds like it's growing and houses are going fast.  Hope I'm not too late.

Welcome to South Dakota!  This state will always be a great state to live in!  No, you are not to late to move here,  plenty of houses here to choose from.   I live in Sioux Falls here.  Sioux Falls has great hospitals and health care here!  Cost of living here is lower than all the other large cities,  no state income tax, and many other reasons to live here!  I am sure someone could say the same thing about Rapid City.   We also have a great Governor who is working hard to make and keep South Dakota a great state to live in.

I like Pierre. Down in that valley, and it looks like a nice town.

You mentioned Gov Kristi Noem and I'm a big fan, have been for a long time.   But she's term limited after this term - any insights into who the heir apparent might be?    

Too early to tell who the next Governor will be!  South Dakota always picks an excellent Republican Governor!

I like Sioux Falls and it does have excellent medical care ( 3 docs and 1 RN in the family).  They've also got some very good "nightlife" and pretty much all the shopping you could need.  Growth in the area is really high, so housing prices reflect that (not that West River is any better).  Yes, they have rush hours.  

But I like the Southern Hills better.  Slower pace, less traffic (except during the motorcycle rally) and much better outdoor recreation opportunities.  Rapid has good medical facilities and fulfills most of my shopping requirements.  

As of my father's death last month, I'm now a land owner in SD (Custer area).  We'll probably split our time between North Texas and The Hills once my wife retires (next year).

SD is mostly G2G but make sure you actually see the house/neighborhood/town you're moving to before buying. I work with people just moving here for my job and see it all the time - find a great deal on a house and then realize why it was a great deal.
There are towns that just get ignored and are swamps for meth use and other criminals hiding. And other towns that border reservations that certainly have their disadvantages you might not like dealing with as a retired guy.

Probably Jackass Jackley.

Hmmm ok thanks for all responses.  Yeah I know it ain't gonna be prefect and I'm sure as shit planning on a recon before buying, but all n all, it sounds pretty good to me, at this point in time.  

The funny thing is there are more peeps in Charlotte, NC where I (presently) live than all of SD, which is a good start as far as I'm concerned.

And, by all accounts, it's still a very conservative area.  Even the neighborhood descriptions mention this fact, less some wayward liberal consider living there.  

I'm thinking I can't go wrong, dam-near anywhere in the state, as long as local conditions are good.  And if I make it to 70, Imma gonna celebrate by buying one of them there ammo bunkers that one dude is selling.  Now that there is the ultimate man cave.  We could have an arfcom RV.

Yep you'll definitely need a few recon trips.  I'd been to the Black Hills region a few times before but only recently started looking at it through the lens of my next home.     We learned on our last recon trip there that while we really, really like Custer for example, it's a bit too small even for me considering proximity to "bigger city" things like Lowes for projects for example in Rapid City is ~45 minutes away when you need them.   Contrast that with Hermosa which is microscopic even compared to Custer, BUT you're only 15 minutes to Rapid.

No doubt you've already thought of this but get out of the hotels and do VRBO / AirBnB for several days in different locations to get a better feel for the "vibe" of an area.  Go out and do the things you normally do at home when running errands.    For us, nightlight/restaurants aren't high on our list but they might be for some.

Yeah I'm definitely with you at that one.  Nightlife, meh, don't really give a rat at this point.  Looking for good solid folks as neighbors, vs all the urbanites I'm dealing with now.  

Getting our house ready to go on market as we speak.  As soon as it sells, we're out of here.  

BTW anybody ever heard of Black Hills Gear?  Saw a new belt kit in another thread.  Need to check in with those boys.

To be clearer...  by Custer "nightlife" I meant some pretty good restaurants and a couple of places to grab a good beer.  It's definitely not a town with singles bars.

Black Hills Designs? I'm friends with the owner, great people!

Hey Dog, wasn't pointing at you when I made a comment earlier about "nightlife";  more of a nod to people who leave a much bigger city for a more rural setting and then are surprised when they don't have the same range of opportunities.  To me it's a "well duh!" but I've seen it before and have had people that didn't know me well enough yet caution me about it.

No, it's all good.  My skin is pretty thick.  But sometimes Rapid seems like it's too close.  

It's not very often that I've felt the need to drive into Rapid for shopping.  Between the Do It Best and Ace in Custer, I've gotten most of what I need for home repair stuff.  And the grocery store in Custer has a decent selection of beers, booze and beef.  And of course, Amazon delivers.

The times I have driven into Rapid, it's been for things like bicycle tubes or other niche stuff.  Or sometimes just for a change of pace and a meal at Firehouse.

My sister and BIL just bought a place up in Spearfish, and I've spent very little time up there.  So looking forward to exploring that way.  It's a lot further than going to Rapid and yeah, I know about the upcoming road construction on 385, but driving in the Hills is enjoyable.  


Sidebar:  Any word on Sugar Shack rebuild?  My google-foo isn't providing any good news.

Wait, what happened to the best burger joint in the state?? We didn't make it out west for any ATV trips last year...

Burned to the ground. That's the first place the wife and I ate on our honeymoon.

I'm sorry to report that it burned to the ground back in mid December.
https://www.newscenter1.tv/multimedia/sugar-shack-update-photos-after-overnight-fire/article_ae66bcc4-9a98-11ee-8047-af48a0791d19.html

Well that completely sucks, thanks for the update. We always stopped to eat there a couple times a year every time we were out west on the trails. Hopefully they're able to rebuild.

Thats because youre living the CO lifestyle where you MUST funnel cash to corporations that hate you
You go to the family owned ace or do it best in custer
You order your materials for your project for pickup there or buy lumber directly locally
If your well pressure switch kicks the bucket on a tuesday you just grab one in custer you dont drive all the way to rapid for that

I'm on the east side and unless you're set to buy some land I'd recommend the west as well.

Every time I visit the family in Sioux Falls, I'm amazed how much more construction there is over my previous visit.

And land prices around SF?

Yeah...  head west. Though land prices out there aren't much better.

A rebuild would be nice,  but I'm not optimistic.  I believe the family who owned it also owns the nearby gas station/food store.   That place seems to be getting all their attention.

Well guys I can see there are pitfalls no matter where you go, but trust me, it's a matter of scale.  I have moved twice when the town I was in got too big.  That's a double-edged sword, in that your property value always goes up, but then you get the whole package that comes with it.  When I say down-sizing I mean literally the whole danged affair.  So for sure, looking at a small town that I can live (and probably die) in before it gets too stupid.

Looking to get out there next month.  Can't wait.

East river here, about 90 miles NW of Sioux Falls, deep in farm country. Absolutely love it, great people, good fishing and hunting, and still some affordable places out here. The drive to town for groceries is a minor pain, but we only do it once a month. There are some other cities closer to Sioux Falls that are not as big but seem pretty nice.

All-in-all a great place to live, wish they'd drop the property tax some though. Kinda high.

My wife is long time friends with the owners. They have started the rebuild.

Damn...  that's some good news finally.  I can't count the times I've sat at the bar drinking cheap beers and eating the best greasy burger for 100s of miles.  

Unless US 385 is just fubar with road construction, we're planning a drive-by in a couple of weeks to see what's going on.  Sugar Shack is right at the north end of where construction starts this summer.

ETA:  Info on said road construction - https://us-385.com/

Yes! Any word on when it'll open again?

Is that Custer Crossing with the camper hookups that they just rebuilt across from Roubaix Lake park?



Woohoo! That's great news.

I'm not sure.  I was only told about a gas station/store "nearby".  That campground is about 6 miles north of the Sugar Shack site.  In Texas, that would be nearby.  So maybe?

I'm in Sioux Falls.  I'd prefer to live almost anywhere else in SD than here.

I like visiting,  but it's getting very "busy."

I grew up there and I can't stand going there anymore. Don't recognize it, and feel no emotional attachment what-so-ever when driving through. Went to town and stopped at Costco and there's some 6'5" dude checking out my groceries dressed as a woman. Palestine supporters on the street corners. More mentally ill trannies downtown.
Minneapolis West.
It's going to be the downfall of the state in the next decade, that one stupid ass city is going to end up turning the state blue. LSS is doing their best to import people to make that happen.

SF has turned into an almost as dirty, smelly leftist city as Fargo!

I live in the DFW messtroplex.  What you're seeing is but a drop on the bucket to us.  It helps that most of my family lives south of 229.  But 41st has definitely changed.

We'll be up in SF for my nephew's wedding in a few days.   We leave for Custer on Monday.  The rest of the family is heading to Spearfish.  We'll spend about 10 days there at the cabin.  I'm looking forward to some Black Hills time.

1000%.  It's taint has spilled over and already ruined surrounding towns...  Harrisburg, Brandon, Dell Rapids, Baltic, Tea, Lennox...even Parker.

It boggles my mind how much Harrisburg has grown - that's where my Nephew had his wedding last weekend.  Mom says the population there is more than 10x what is was when she moved to the area in 1980.  8000 folks now?

I didn't know Brandon very well back in the day, but the traffic on 11 was heavier than I remembered.  We stayed at Big Sioux Rec Area while we were there and that was really nice...  until last Sunday night when they fired up the dirt track cars at Huset's.    But it wasn't that bad and they were done by 9:30.    

But it's sad to see all the great farm land get developed.  Mom's first house was at the absolute edge of SF when she got there, with active farming less than a 100 yards from her back deck.  If you head east from her old place, it's now 2.5 miles to get to farm land.  Almost the same thing has happened at her new place on the south side of SF.


Thankfully, Custer hasn't changed that much since we started coming here.  A few big hotels built on the west side, but the population has been pretty unchanged for the last 20 years.  The Custer HS graduating class was a whole 64 kids.  So we've been enjoying our time out here.  Surprisingly, the Memorial Day weekend surge hasn't been a surge at all.  It doesn't look like the campgrounds between here and Hill City are busy at all.  And the campgrounds at Custer SP definitely had open sites.  We can hear the traffic on 385/16 if we have the deck doors open, but it's been fairly quiet.  

The beer at Mount Rushmore Brewing and Miner Brewing has been pretty good, though I wish they hadn't taken the flatbread off the menu at Miner.  We're going to hit the Buglin' Bull tonite and Skogen's on Thursday.  The sticker shock at Dakotamart has been a downer.  So I did a bunch of grocery shopping in Rapid City when I was hunting down a GFCI breaker.  Rapid seems a little busier, but it's not awful.  It's definitely grown on the south side and southeast sides, but traffic wasn't a problem.

And I finally experienced the Menard's in Rapid.  That place is HUGE!  And it had everything I couldn't find locally.  That place is going to make my wallet cry.  

My wife and I are looking forward to spending a whole lot more time up here once we sort out house sitting for our place down in Texas.  Because we still don't do winters.  

Hope everyone is having a fun Memorial Day weekend.  
Cheers!
B

I grew up in Harrisburg, graduated in '93 with just over 50 kids in my class.  I hate what happened to that town.  

Watertown is Nice.

Well we're finally up here.  I gotta say, I'm very happy with the move.  We ended up buying a home on the outskirts of SF.  This gives us access to good healthcare and so forth (we're in our late 60's) but we're still outside the city limits, and all that goes with that.  Some have mentioned that this whole area has gone "down-hill", and while I can't argue with that, I would also add I've seen this happen across the country, from Kali to NC, so for me, it's a matter of scale.  Moving here re-sets the clock at least 20 years.  I've come to the conclusion that that's about the best you can do.  Unless you're one of these lucky ones that can just work from home.  Time just marches on and things do change.  

All that being said.  I am also going across state and looking at those Vivos Point X bunkers.  If you get past all their corny hype about Armageddon and so forth, I think you'll find an interesting community living there.  They actually have some interesting plans about building a whole, self-sufficient community, which is what I'm interested in.  So in effect, I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too.  Who knows, as time goes on, I may be spending more and more time there, and even moving there full time.  

I know some of you may be going what the fuck, but I think this may be a viable alternative.  Sort of like an Amish community with AR's.  As I get further into it I will report back to you guys, if anyone's interested.  If I pull the trigger on this, I'll be looking for a battle-buddy that wants to commute back and forth from SF area to Provo.

Vivos guys are well known scammers in bunker community, everyone with a silo/bunker facility has had that slick as snot dude over promise under deliver and cost them money.
There is no self sufficient community or anything going down at former fort igloo. The bunkers there are concrete boxes decorated from the ace hardware in edgemont. Take it from a local: That place is a death trap or at best a creative scam.

Appreciate the advice.

Welcome! Just in time for all the flooding. . .

Deleted.....

Yeah and now enjoying the skeeters!

Making a run over to Rapid City area later this week.

Well for anyone interested, Vivos X Point is pretty much complete bullshit.  Thanks for the guys here giving me the heads up. I went a day early and did a ground reconnaissance.  There was zero security, as I just waltzed right in.  The few people I saw were friendly and waved, but that was about it.  I didn't want to engage beyond that.  I physically inspected several bunkers, in different areas.  I would estimate a good 1/4 of all the bunkers are unusable, as is.  Missing doors and actual holes in the concrete.  Those that are "easily" repairable are well, just ammo bunkers.  It would take a massive amount of time and money to make into a livable shelter.  So that aspect is...doable.

But the question is: why?  

First of all, there is no "community" there, as such.  Maybe it could be in the future, but there ain't shit there right now.  Right now all you have is an eclectic mixture of individuals, doing their own thing.  I saw two work crews that might or might not be working on bunkers as contractors, or likely as not, just doing their own thing.  Let's say they were contractors hired to build your bunker out.  At that rate, it would be ten years before you had a complete "village" or whatever.  So bottom line, you're just a prepper, doing your own thing, surrounded by a few other individuals who might or might not help you out.  If it would ever coalesce into a community, we're probably talking years down the line.  Right now you're living right in the middle of a dilapidated junk yard, without power or running water.  So sorta the worst of a community, without any of the perks.

Secondly let's consider the location.  It is literally bum-fuck South Dakota.  There is no infrastructure whatsoever.  You are generating your own electricity.  You probably do not have water plumbed in.  You probably do not have flush toilets.  Guys this is pretty fucking primitive.  Unless you know and understand this, you're in for a real shocker.   There is zero agriculture set up to date.  No crops, no livestock.  No general store, no medical support, no nuthin' honey.  So at this point in time, once your year's supply of food is gone, you're simply fucked.  So what's the point-x?  

And finally, let's consider this whole concept.  A thriving survival community, ready for come what may.  Yeah, about that.  Ideally you would want to be in a small, self-sufficient community, in a remote location.  But that essentially describes many small towns, to one extent or the other.  Why would you want to live in a re-purposed ammo storage bunker?  Surrounded by a few hundred other re-purposed ammo storage bunkers?  Either you want to hunker down and weather the storm, or you combine efforts to defend yourselves.  If you hunker down, ideally you want to be underground, and invisible if at all possible.  If you want to defend your village, you have to be out, running about.  So the bunker accomplishes neither.  You could have a small town of regular houses, with "bomb shelters", just in case, and accomplish the same mission.

This is in fact the great revelation I had, in visiting this location.  Many people I talked to were essentially "preppers" and didn't know it; it was just their lifestyle, living out in a remote location.  The thinking was why live in a concrete bunker?  You're already out here, out of the way; what is going to happen to you?  If Armageddon hit, it would be a long time before they even felt any of it's effects.  They would just go on with what they were doing.  Farming, growing crops, raising livestock.  They already have storm shelters, that could easily be up-graded into nuclear fallout shelters.  

So yeah this was an interesting trip, to say the least.  All I gotta say is, I'm glad I moved up here, am busy getting a new house made, and thank God for electricity and running water.

I had only heard of this site but never looked into it.   After a quick glance at their website my first thought is that their claim to be isolated away from major threats is pretty laughable.    

They WAY overstate the reach of a submersion zone for a west coast tsunami and they WAY understate the plume from a Yellowstone caldera eruption - yeah they call it the blast zone but the fallout is just as bad.   Not to mention Ellsworth AFB (~80 miles to the north) is about to get the B21 in a couple of years so will become a much higher priority target than it was (relatively) with the B1.

Not that I disagree with what they're doing conceptually, but when I see those glaring errors I have to think that either they (a) don't know what they're talking about or (b) intentionally trying to mislead people (borderline scam IMO).  

Been thinking of a way to respond to the "community" thing, but didn't want to sound like a douche.
It will never be a community. Unless something absolutely terrible happens and unites people there to work towards a common goal, it will never happen. Even then, it won't happen.

You have all those individuals with their own goals out there. In order to be some community, there needs to be full on communism/socialism out there. Half of the work day can be on your own stuff, and half the work day needs to be for the greater good of the community to make it work.
Think about it, no one is going to do that work for the community. As soon as Bill sees George slacking off and not putting in the time, Bill is going to wonder what the hell he's doing all the work for and just stop. As Americans, we're individualists. We're just not wired for it.

I base this on many conversations with a group called the Hutterites. You'll see them around Sioux Falls if you haven't already. They're similar to the Amish, but they are all about using technology to make their community - colony successful. They're easy to recognize - the men wear black pants with no back pockets, plaid shirts and suspenders.
Anyways, I work with them quite a bit and have had many conversations about community living.
Their system works because of 3 main things. 1) They are born and raised in it, and that's their way of life. 2) They are all a homogenous population - all the same language, culture, values with very little staining from outside influences 3) They all share the common goal of serving God
They have rotational duties. The men do man jobs, work in their manufacturing shops, farming operations, etc. The women do traditional roles, take turns working in the kitchen, help raise the children. They all help garden, and when there's a big task they all get to it.
It's impressive when they have a big task. They all go out and get it done, I've never noticed guys trying to sneak out of doing it. For example, loading turkeys - 50,000 of them onto trucks in the dead of winter in shitty weather doing a shitty job, they just get to doing it.

There have been outsiders who have tried to join the colonies in the past, and it has never worked out. They won't even consider taking outsiders anymore. It's a system you have to be born into.
Can you imagine when the going gets tough in a community like this bunker place, all these individual preppers getting together to accomplish a common goal when the work is going to be shitty and in shitty weather?
Hell no. It only takes a few people to say "fuck that - I've gots mines" and the whole system is going to fall apart. And pretty much everyone out there is going to be all about them and their own individual preps to be concerned for the greater good.
I've never really considered it or thought about it much until actually hanging out at the Colony and seeing the people do their thing out there and comparing it to our way of life and realizing that "prepper communities" are just a retarded fantasy.

Anyways, welcome to SD!

Is the Big Sioux part of a waterway connecting the Great Lakes and Pacific Submersion zone? I would like to talk to that map designer.

Make sure you blaze a fatty beforehand so you can get on the mapmaker's level. What a load of crap.

Ha ha yeah I guess I wuz drinking the cool-aid here eh?  

My problem was I was trying to imagine what it COULD be, vs what the reality of what it IS.  And for sure, they were happy to encourage my delusions.

I saw a lot of bad press, but thought that's just lefties who think having more than 24 hours of food is hoarding.  But when you meet simple country folk who wonder "why the fuck would anyone want to live in an ammo bunker at the old Ft Igloo"; that got my attention.  

And my own recon was a real eye-opener.  That place is just dead, pure and simple.  Whatever it was a long time ago is completely gone now.  When I described all this to my wife, she said it sounds like one of those post-apocalyptic movies you watch.  Dilapidated buildings with rubble strewn all about the place.  And yeah, she's absolutely right; except you don't realize just how horribly depressing that is, until you're standing right in the middle of it.  The first half-way decent bunker I found and explored was a real disappointment; when you actually stood inside the thing; it was an old, abandoned ammo storage bunker; there was nothing more to be said about it.  

To say I was disappointed would be the understatement of the year.  And I couldn't get out of there quick enough.  I hauled ass back to Sioux Falls and cancelled my "tour" for the next day.  

But enough of that shit.  I can't tell you how glad I am to be up here.  My goal was to make the move before the election.  My thinking was to avoid all the crazy in November.  But I guess I ended up getting up here in the nick of time.