by Carmen Doyle
I recently
went to South Dakota for a family reunion. Rapid City, SD is about an 18 hr
drive from Ft. Wayne. I discovered once again that the “hearty pioneer spirit”
that my ancestors allegedly had skipped me. A two-day trip in a car going at
least 60mph is hard enough, a week long trip by a covered wagon going 60 miles
per DAY would be horrible. I like rest stops that feature vending machines or
better yet, an outlet mall! Somehow the accounts from the Little House books I
devoured as a kid have failed to convince me that traveling across country by
wagon would be fun. At least Mom and I took the pretty route- avoiding the
Nebraska Sandhills.
We made the trip in two parts- Wednesday we drove to western
Iowa, and stayed the night with Mom’s best friend. Wednesday highlights
featured our favorite I-80 restaurant, which sold, among other things, Auto
Bingo. However, none of the Bingo cards featured a spot for “Adult” stores- and
I saw many ads for those. We also stopped briefly to shop at an outlet mall. (Also
not on Bingo cards.) A really neat thing I found was a Visitor Guide to
Pottawatomie County- which is where we were headed. Another reason I’m glad I’m
not a pioneer? My phone was acting up and the wireless wasn’t working, and I
was trying not to panic- what if there was a big storm and we got off course?
My wireless not working meant that using Google Maps would be useless. And
nobody has PAPER maps anymore! Or what if we had to change a flat tire and
couldn’t get online to figure out the proper way to do so? And how could I check email and Facebook
without access to internet? Or what if…? Fortunately, nothing happened, and
only the last mile going into Neola was bad rain, and we didn’t get behind any
big trucks.
Thursday, Mom and I got up early(-ish) and went to the
cemetery to visit the graves of my grandparents and uncle. My wireless being
difficult, I couldn’t send Dad a photo to reassure him that the graves were
being properly maintained. Later, we met up with my Aunt Linda and cousin Layla
to continue the drive to SD. We didn’t stop again until Sioux Falls, and I
realized that using a Garmin to find a local restaurant can be a pain.
SD is a pretty state, very different from IA and IN. There
are few farms, and most of what we saw from the car window was cattle and
rolling green hills.
Almost as soon as we entered SD, we began to see signs
advertising “Wall Drug”, which seemed to feature brownies, nickel root beer,
and all sorts of wonderment. (There
are more Wall Drug signs in SD than there are “Adult” billboards along I-80.)
We got suckered into stopping there, only to find it was a big tourist trap- two
blocks of stores designed to look like log cabins, connected to each other.
While I did find a bookstore in the complex, we didn’t find any brownies or
nickel root beer. If you’re crossing SD, ignore Wall Drug. Driving all over
town for two blocks of tacky tourist shops disguised as log cabins isn’t worth
it.
We finally arrived at my Aunt Marilyn’s house that evening-
again finding that GPS only works when you can read the street signs- and drove
up to the cabin we had rented for everyone to stay at. Only about half the
family could make it- eight people. (Since the major purpose of the reunion was
for the Schmidt kids- Mom and her three siblings-to get together, the reunion
was a success.) The cabin was huge, three stories high, with a wraparound porch,
fireplace, a mud room off the kitchen and a huge living/dining room with a
smaller side room for the TV.
The upstairs level, accessible via a metal spiral staircase,
featured a large open room filled with bookcases, which were full of books
related to the area as well as old board games. There was a room connected to
that, which featured four beds, bunk beds, and a trundle bed. The setup was
great- every bed (except the bunk beds) sat in a niche and had a small lamp
sitting above it- perfect for reading. And since there was a bathroom on every
level, it meant that everybody could brush their teeth or shower without
waiting for the rest of the family to get out. The walls of the cabin were
decorated with elk heads, bear heads and skins, and a bison head. Disconcerting
at first, but as Marilyn pointed out, when people come to visit Rapid, they
want the lodge experience- animals on the walls. That didn’t stop the rest of
us from planning on how we would redecorate if we lived there. (It was probably
the result of the Architectural Digest and HGTV magazines that someone had
brought for reading material.)
The cabin was designed for families- there was a tree house
in the yard, which featured electric lights. Built in a pine tree, it creaked
whenever the wind blew- and the wind seemed to always blow. The beds were unfortunately
too small for adults, so I had a good excuse not to sleep outside.
The first full day (Friday) we were in SD, we went to Mt.
Rushmore. I’ve been before, but I still found it awe-inspiring. It’s HUGE.
Pictures don’t do it justice- it’s not until you’re there that you can
appreciate how awesome that a sculpture was literally carved into a mountain.
Admission is free; however, you pay for parking. A parking pass is good all
year for the license plate on the car. There is a viewing platform when you first
enter through the Avenue of Flags. The Avenue of Flags features (of course) the
flag of every state (displayed alphabetically) along with the date of their
admission into the Union. You can stay in the viewing area for the classic
view, as well as visit the Borglum Museum, or you can take the Presidential
Trail. The Presidential Trail gets closer to the carvings, and includes a look
at one of the old compressors used to power the machinery that Borglum and his
workers used to carve the mountain. We got to see the Sculptor’s Studio, where
a ranger gave us a talk about how the mountain was carved (mostly dynamite) and
we saw a scale model used in carving the mountain. The model was 1/12 the size
of the carving, but Abe’s head was taller than the ranger giving the talk.
Much to Layla’s disappointment, there is no secret vault
hidden behind Mt. Rushmore (as seen in National Treasure 2). There were
originally plans for a Hall of Records, intended to hold copies of the
Constitution and Declaration of Independence, but Borglum never got financing
to complete it. (Years later, a capsule with copies of important documents was
placed there. It’s not accessible to the public.) I loved the Presidential
Trail- it was so cool to see the faces at different angles. I had forgotten my
camera, so I used my cell phone to take photos. I wanted a photo of everyone
with the mountain in the background. When I called for the Schmidts to pose,
another tourist asked how we spelled our name- it turned out he was a Schmidt
as well, but from Saskatchewan instead of Nebraska. He volunteered to take a
family photo so that I could be in the picture as well.
At Mount Rushmore, I bought a “Passport to your National
Parks”- so my new goal is to visit every park on the list. (One down, 400 to
go)
Saturday, we started our day with a small hike to Stratobowl,
the site of the first successful stratospheric balloon launch. Stratobowl is a
natural depression in the valley, so we went to the overlook. The view is
magnificent. If you’re there in the evening, I’m told you can really see the
different colors of the rocks. We also saw a few large birds (but no eagles)
flying over the trees- Marilyn said they like the updraft there.
We then went to Bear Country, a drive-thru wildlife park. At
first, it seemed kind of a juvenile thing- a drive-through zoo? It turned out
to be really enjoyable. It’s almost like a reverse zoo- YOU’RE the one in a
cage (your car) and the animals just wander around. We saw big horn sheep; a
mountain lion; bison… the coolest part was the bears. They are huge, and they
look so cute and cozy. (We were warned to keep our doors and windows shut while
driving through the bears.) A few bears even meandered within a few feet of the
car windows. (If the bear had turned his
head, he could have hit the car.) Aunt Barb and I kept telling Uncle Steve to
slow down/stop the car so we could get better pictures. The only problem with
taking pictures from a car interior is that sometimes my photos included more
of the car than the animals. We saw a bear splashing in a pond, and several bears
lounging around on trees. The bears even seemed to “patrol” the exit- several
bears just walked up and down by the exit gate. A sign said to move the car
slowly and the bears would move aside. They did move aside for our car, but the
car behind us had their bumper bit by one of the bears. A few cars behind us
got a great photo-op of two bears wrestling each other. The bears also liked to
chew on old elk horns – the elk grow new ones every year. It was early enough
in the year that the elk and deer still had “velvet” on their horns, and the
bison were shedding fur. (Bison are not good looking, especially when they’re
covered in shaggy fur blotches.) There were signs near our cabin that warned to
watch for Big Horn Sheep, but the only ones we saw were at Bear Country. While
my house in IN has deer, Bear Country had reindeer- which looked more like the
ones pictured pulling Santa’s sleigh, and much bigger than the reindeer the
Botanical Conservatory has during Holiday Fest.
Sunday was the big day- we had all decided to go to Crazy
Horse for Volksmarch, a 10k walk/run-- 6.2 miles didn’t sound like a bad walk
until I started and realized that I’d be climbing up a mountain. And not on a
well-maintained path. Nope, the Crazy Horse Volksmarch path is mostly forest
paths, visible only because of the thousands of feet that have previously
traveled the path. Volksmarch is the only time that visitors are allowed up the
mountain, as the sculpture, which will be the largest in the world when completed,
is still under construction. To get an idea how big Crazy Horse is, Mt.
Rushmore would easily fit on his outstretched arm. A problem with a long
difficult hike is the difficulty of everyone in our family staying together. As
we started, Mom held my hand and gave me the same speech she has her preschoolers
say before a field trip: “You’re my buddy, I’ll watch out for you.” Within 20
minutes, she was far ahead of me. The majority of the time, all I saw of her
was a pink blur somewhere ahead of me. Our family didn’t manage to stay
together while walking- as Layla said, “We’re not all super-aerobic robots”
after a few “hurry-up” motions were directed our way.
One of the most interesting parts of the Volksmarch was the
wide variety of people participating.
There seemed to be a lot of older people participating, as well as
families with young kids. Nothing to make you feel like you need to get in
shape like being surpassed by an elderly couple discussing recipes or a dad
with an exhausted seven year old in his arms and a toddler on his back . One of
the most dispiriting parts of the Volksmarch was discovering that you’ve
reached the final check point- but aren’t
at the top of the mountain yet. And that the top involves a steep climb
uphill. I was weary from the 6.2 miles I’d just walked, but it would have been
ridiculous to stop so close to the top. When I finally reached the top, the
view was worth it. We stood on his arm, directly below his chin. The head of
Crazy Horse is complete, so it was cool to see how big he is. (It looked like
his pupil was as tall as me.) We got to see how far his arm will extend when
his wrist and hand are finished.
Going down the mountain was much easier- we got to use the
road. While I was in the visitor center, I met a woman from Fort Wayne, who
turned out to be the head of the Fort Wayne Volksmarch association. She
informed me of a few upcoming Volksmarches here and said they’d be less
rigorous than Crazy Horse. So, anyone up for a 10k?
