Fall is coming. Among the pines here in the Black Hills of South Dakota, there are quaking aspens already in their golden glory. I’ve already spent one night in sweats and a winter cap in front of the campfire – I’ve been blessed enough to travel through all four seasons this year, and although my goal is to get home before any snow hits, I’m loving the fall experience.
I’m sitting in unbelievable beauty of rugged mountains, large piles of boulders, and pines and feeling the fall breezes – all while doing my laundry! I see a storm rolling in, darker clouds approaching from the west I believe and is that thunder I can hear in the distance? Tomorrow, I will move further west into Wyoming, for my final national parks before home. Both nostalgic about this year’s adventures, these journeys and excited about what the next phase will look like. And happy about seeing the people important to me, my daughter and her husband, my grandsons, my siblings and my friends again soon.
Been 71 for a week now and remember where I was a year ago. In my final weeks of “employment”, holding myself back a little from packing too soon and looking forward to my big 70th birthday/retirement party. What a difference a year makes! I’m now almost finished with my year of adventures (but not my adventures or journeys), and putting my plans in reverse – finding a place to buy and live (hopefully), getting everything out of storage and finding out what that phase of my life looks like. By the way, have I ever mentioned that I really don’t think about the work I used to do?
Here’s the update on my last few weeks.
Hospitality in Missouri
After leaving St. Louis, I travelled to my final Harvest Host stay with a military/law enforcement couple outside of Kansas City. When they met, she’d just got out of the Navy, and I believe he was in the marines – she re-upped, they got married and then were stationed together in Honolulu! Not quite like Mom and Dad but reminds me of my parents. He’d just retired as a police officer, and she was still working in Special Ops. They were friendly, helpful and got me power for my AC, since it was 97 degrees. They had RV’d for years and decided to make their rural property, surrounded by cornfields, a haven for the boon dockers. They didn’t farm or brew anything, just opened their land for a few RVs to park for the night as needed, and didn’t request anything but accepted donations if you were so inclined (I was).
They set up a small room in their huge garage/shop with AC, a huge video library, couches and snacks for boondockers to escape heat. They also had a significant collection in their sharing library – I left 4, took 3. And something I’d never seen before, they had a bathroom with shower for their guests to use! Amazing. Best of all, they invited me to coffee the next morning next to their pool and large goldfish pond where we swapped stories – turns out HR and law enforcement have a few things in common. Both professions find themselves dealing with people in “what were they thinking” situations. Of course, I would never claim we are in the same profession – our people in blue put themselves in harm’s way as part of their daily job, and I give my respect to them. We laughed for a while until it was time for me to move on. I left with new friends and received my first Halloween decoration, a little scarecrow, for my rig thanks to Tracy.
The lost innocence of Sioux Falls
Upon leaving my new friends, I took the hosts advice and stopped in Sioux Falls (the city), to see Sioux Falls (the water) and was glad I did. This was another creation of mother earth worth seeing – water rushing over plateaus of slate rock in multiple stages. Pretty awesome, but something in my heart felt off about the location in the middle of the city. The history of the falls was that industry had built up around it to harness the power of the falls. So, you have this wonderous work of nature surrounded by ugly brick buildings, many now abandoned – it seems like the falls are misplaced. They should be running through a canyon, or the badlands and be wild and free from the city park that surrounds them. Glad I saw them anyway.
My drive across South Dakota was basically covering miles, to get across the country to the national parks I wanted to visit. However, there was a lot of nostalgia in the journey. I believe it was in this state, during the infamous 1968 family trip across country in my youth that we camped at the edge of a cornfield for a night. Back then, as long as we weren’t hippies, (well, perhaps my sister and I were wanna be’s) no farmer took offense to a family of 7 settling in for the night (even if a couple of ears of corn may have contributed to the feast of hot dogs and beans my mom generally served while camping).
One thing I loved about this state was the billboards – mile after mile of quirky boards enticing one to visit an attraction, dinosaur park or diner, throw backs to the 1950’s-60s when a navigation was called “road map” and perusing these monstrous advertisements was the equivalent of an internet search for “things to do in South Dakota”. Followed one from Sioux City to the town of Wall where you came out of the Badlands, but due to time bypassed the ‘1880’ town and the movie set of Dances with Wolves (one of my favorite movies). I loved the billboard that told me the Mexican food was so good, Trump would build a wall around it! Or the fact that about a dozen signs for Firehouse Brewery had old fire engines sitting under them (with the claim that Rachel Ray loved their brews).
Coming Home to the Badlands
Although I had planned my trip through Missouri and South Dakota as basically long drives and overnight stops, when I realized how easy it was to get to Badlands National, there was no way to not go. Spending a good few hours there was very doable with the drive the next day. Once I saw the Badlands, I was immediately put into my spiritual place of connecting with the earth because these lands weren’t bad at all! Instead, they were lesser reflections of the canyons of Utah, the painted hills of Oregon and/or the Petrified Forest in Arizona. Perhaps not a grand and colorful as Zion, Bryce or Canyon Lands National Parks – but certainly familiar and welcoming me home to what I love: the art that is earth. It was a great drive that ended with a herd of buffaloes hanging out by the exit on the other end of the drive. Apparently, the National Park sign is a favorite scratching post for these huge beings.
The drive ended in the well-advertised “Wall Drug” in Wall, SD. It had been advertised as still having a 5-cent cup of coffee – which was so elusive I never found where to get that drink! Instead, I found a huge indoor mall of tourist shops – and a couple of odd attractions like a huge carved Jackalope? But never that nickel coffee. Hmm. But it was fun to follow the signs, even if they only lead to a huge tourist trap. Of course, being a lover of these weird types of places, I found some bargains on the last round of T-shirts I’m buying for anyone ever! (yeah right, Grandma).
Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse and Reflection
My first view of Mt. Rushmore was from Keystone, SD where I spent my first night in the area. Loved the location, but not the cost – so I limited my stay to one night. And since it was only a short walk to the little downtown area, I spent that evening having the best mojitos ever (have to remember to order them more often!), a great steak dinner (my second and enhanced birthday meal) and then browsed the tourist shops for deals (didn’t find any).
The next day, I packed up and moved onto the Mt. Rushmore monument. Awesome as I remembered since my visit here in 1968. Four men who understood democracy and did a lot for this nation – they understood the dangers one man could present our fragile democracy but didn’t envision the things that needed to be in law to protect us (they believed only honest men with the country’s best interest at heart would seek the office of presidency, if they had only known – we need a clause that makes it illegal for a felon to run for the highest office in the land). I reflected a lot on the beliefs of men like our founding fathers who were firm in their philosophies about our freedom and liberties embedded in “we the people”. And Abe, who I met before on this trip – his understanding of all men created equal meant all men, period. Our first amendment is about our right to freedom of speech, Thomas Jefferson was big on this because he, along with the other founding fathers were fed up with a tyrant, a king not allowing their voices to be heard.
I’ve only visited two National Parks that were about our democracy on this trip, and I feel good about the ones I chose to visit. I’m hoping seeing these monuments will refresh my belief that our democracy will survive the current threats. You may not see the current situation as I do – and I respect your first amendment right to think and express yourself differently. I hope you respect mine. For that very concept is under attack.
Since the area is about carving huge heads into mountains, I also visited the Crazy Horse Memorial – a work in progress for the last 80 plus years, I think. The story of this monument is amazing, a sculptor’s dedication to honoring the Native Americans who were willing to share their land only to have it taken from them brutally and with broken promises. It is part of our history; we can’t deny it. Accepting what happened is a way to begin healing. As one chief said, paraphrased, the only promise the white man kept was the promise to take our land. I feel an ancient sadness in me when I think of what our nation has done to people over the years. Maybe what we are seeing today is an extension of hate, greed, and bias that we never matured out of as a country.
I listened to the talk by a Lakota woman and read about the Native American belief in white buffalo calves, I learned that some indigenous cultures have spiritual beliefs I share. The Lakota (as well as other plains nations) believe we are all children of the same creator, and we come in different colors. I believe we are all part of the same universe, come from the same connection in a variety of shapes, colors, abilities and languages. They also believe that children are born to love one another, hate is taught. There is a Lakota prophecy that states the world will find peace when children of all colors come together and create it. They also believe that a white buffalo calf is a miracle to help us understand that all colors come from the same place. Apparently, a white buffalo calf will change color many times before coming into the full darker brown coloration of the adult buffalo to show us that we carry all colors within us. What a beautiful thought.
This monument is the result of a long and trustful relationship between the son of immigrants, Korczak Ziolkowski, his wife Ruth and Chief Standing Bear, Lakota nation. The Oglala Lakota Chief Tasunke Witco, Crazy Horse, was selected by a council of chiefs for the monument because he was the final holdout refusing to sign treaties. He finally brought his people to the reservation to keep them from starving and was killed shortly thereafter. As Chief Standing Bear stated about the reason for the memorial, “My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know that the red man had great leaders also.”
We could use some great leaders today, like any of the five men carved into stone I visited on this journey. Or any of the great women and men throughout history who have or are speaking out against the disregard of our constitution and attempts to destroy our democracy. I love my country, and I am a patriot ready to stand up for her. I just accept we have been imperfect as a nation as we are as individuals. At different times in mankind’s history, different stories have been told to justify mistreatment and disrespect for others based on insignificant human differences. The stories don’t make the actions right, the mindset that chose to believe them did a lot of harm to others. I find it sad that there are still so many who haven’t matured enough to question those hateful narratives. My unconditional love for my country means I am proud of the phenomenal, amazing and progressive things my nation has done while feeling the burden of sadness for the terrible, inhumane mistakes we have made.
The story we are living today, the one where a person, a group of people become authoritarian and blame all of society’s problems on the marginalized populations isn’t a new story. It’s a tired, repeated old narrative so much so that the manual written for today’s regime was taken from the Nazi playbook of not so long ago. It’s one book I support banning, as long as we remain aware of the cautionary tale that teaching hate to our young never results in peace or solves problems.
We need to let our children continue to love, to teach them love instead of hatred. As Crosby, Stills and Nash once sang “Teach your children well, their fathers hell did slowly go by. Feed them on your dreams…”. We can’t just erase the bad segments of our shared existence – the Hitler’s, the Trump’s, the Mussolini’s, slavery and the Trail of Tears – we need to understand these realities if we are ever going to get past these reoccurring instances of dishonest, hateful, hurtful, power and control loving men rising to power. It has to stop.
For now, I can only hope we can return to the role of a compassionate, imperfect, caring, kind and strong world leader we were striving to be. Namaste