“Life often gets in the way of best laid plans,” is exactly what Beverly Dubie texted me after I expressed my disappointment on cancelling our dinner plans during the pink eye epidemic. It so aptly describes our trip, and today was no exception.
We are driving down the highway with a leather shoelace holding together something under our car, my friends, a leather shoelace. This is what it’s come to. Just when we are nearing the very end of our trip, so close to home (well, sort of - we’re right outside the Badlands, but hey, at least it’s not 6000 miles away).
It has been a rather relaxing day for the most part, although incredibly HOT. We spent the night at an overpriced campground so we could have showers and wash much needed underwear. And then we hit Mount Rushmore. I threw back the question as we drove to the monument, “Does anyone know who the four faces on Mount Rushmore are and why?” I got, of course, George Washington because he’s the first president and Elias shouted out, “Abraham Lincoln because he’s the best!” We all burst into laughter at the 9 year old’s enthusiasm. I love it when my kids have an opinion - because it means they actually learned something. Mount Rushmore is a short, but always interesting stop to see such a tremendous feat of human achievement. 6.5 years of work - although it took 14 to complete beginning in 1925. I always marvel at the sheer size of the sculptures and the amount of effort and tenacity it must have taken to accomplish a project of this magnitude. Humans can do amazing things.
After that we headed into Rapid City for what
we kept telling Moriah and Zippy would be a “surprise”. A Facebook friend is also on a road trip this summer and she posted about this park in Rapid City, SD called Storybook Island, a free park run by the local Rotary Club. It was a large playground dedicated to all things Fairy tale and it seemed like quite the enchanting place for 4 and 6 year old little girls. And free is the perfect price tag for us. Since Rapid City is basically on the way between Rushmore and the Badlands, it was a great stopping spot for part of the day. The girls were thrilled with the surprise, just not with the heat. Even though it was still morning, the heat was for real. We spent a lot of time in and out of the the shade trees. After a few hours of that, I looked up some kind of water fun in the area and discovered a splash pad downtown, so that’s where we headed next.
If it seems like we’re killing time, we are. It works out better financially to stay out a bit longer to meet this person from TX to pick up our new dog. Trying to time that from Alaska has been stressful. She runs a business and needed a definite date on particular days and it was SO HARD to determine that 6000 miles away. I rightly guessed that the first weekend in August was too early, but we moved a bit faster than expected and could have met early this week and been home by now, rather than kicking around the Midwest for a few more days - not exactly the funnest place on earth. If we had been less concerned about making our meetup I would have added something like the Tetons to our list but we are in the grasslands instead. Oh, well. But now we are all REALLY ready to get home. In some ways I don’t really want it to end and to return to real life - school, soccer practice, housework… the daily grind, but at this point, so close to home and in the heat of the Midwest, the struggles stand out more sharply. I don’t know about you, but if I have sweat dripping down my back, it’s over. Time to pack it up and head home to the AC.
Everyone was feeling edgy this afternoon as we hunted for swimsuits in the stifling camper, bumping into one another as we fought to find our things and change our clothes. Imagine this happening not only in a tiny camper space, but a camper space covered in all of our packed essentials, strewn all over the floor from the camper’s travel. Not plugged in at the campground with the AC running, but parked in a steamy parking lot behind Storybook Land. We’re talking tripping over a large grill, coolers, a tire, baskets of clothing and other paraphernalia that had come loose during the drive. There is really nothing much more frustrating than trying to open a cupboard for a towel, only to have a tire or other unwieldy object in the way, which is also obstructed by a propane tank or who knows what. You have to move 5 things just to get the one item. On top of that, the camper is slowly falling apart. Our travels are taking its toll on the 20 year old camper. A few of the cupboard doors were completely torn off during one stretch of particularly rough road and now it will fall to the floor whenever opened. If you’re careful to open one door at a time, the section remains intact, but often both will be opened and the whole cupboard face falls to the floor, or sometimes it just plain falls out. We shove the piece back in over the jutting nails and shove the doors back into place and all is well until the next time someone needs a towel or their sandals. I tell you it’s nothing short of madness. As we stumbled around in that chaos trying to make “fun” out of a particularly uncomfortable situation, it took all my willpower to not whine right along with the kids that I was ready to pack it up and just drive home, forget the dog.
But we powered on. We made it to the splash pad. After cooling off - yes, even I and the teenagers got into those sprinklers - we all started to feel much better. It’s amazing how temperature extremes can affect your mood. Things were looking brighter as we gathered up our wet things and moved on to the Badlands for an early dinner and to camp for the night. Or so we thought.
We had to stop for gas, and the last stop before the park was right next door to South Dakota’s iconic tourist trap, Wall Drug. There had been silly signs advertising their wares for the last 30 miles. Tim and I had stopped here on our first move up, curious because of all the signage. So he left us there to poke around while he fueled up. It is a ridiculously enormous gift shop. Really, actually, a maze of gift shops. All connected in one large building - you walk through hallways to section after section of store after store, each featuring it’s own thing - books, gemstones, clothing, toys, etc. We lost Hannah in the maze and I was so irritated. It wouldn’t have been such a big deal if we had had our phones, but mine was dead… I hunted for 20 minutes until I found her - not concerned that she was in trouble or anything, but just frustrated that we would have to find her when it was time to leave.
Our 10 minute stop turned into a couple of hours. Tim called from the gas station, “I can’t shift the van out of park. I’m stuck at the pump… I’m not sure what to do but I’ll keep you posted.” That sick feeling you get when something goes haywire in the middle of nowhere close to bedtime hit my gut. It was right about then we lost Hannah, which just added to my stress level as I hunted for her and considered all the horrible options. Camping at the gas station? Getting a tow how many miles to the nearest mechanic? Delayed for how many days? What if we missed the dog meetup in Arkansas??
Tim had called a friend who knows cars. Something had broken in the gear shift which required him to stop the van and crawl under it in order to be able to move it from park to drive, or from drive to park …. not exactly something you can do in the middle of the road. Tim felt sure he could find a way to connect the broken part but most things were closed. Finally, after a stop at the last open grocery store hunting for zip ties (ACE hardware unfortunately being closed already), he settled on some leather shoelaces.
And so I sat in the car, feeding the hungry kids cheese sticks and apples (since our planned leisurely campground dinner had now been upset for the night) because Tim was under the van, tying a leather shoelace to hold some part of our van together. I can’t pretend that I wasn’t a bit concerned and the idea of driving deeper into nowhere seemed like a bad idea. Tim, however, was unfazed. Apparently, his conversation with our church friend had given him the boost of confidence that he needed to patch it up and truck on.
And so we headed to the Badlands as planned and, as usual, later than desired. But the sun was still well up and we had no trouble finding the long dirt road that was literally perched on the edge of the Badlands.
We pulled into a spot overlooking the formations and the boys were thrilled to make their way down into the rocky landscape while we got things set up. Shoelaces still intact.
We had heard sunsets were beautiful here and had planned to head in to a park overlook to watch it, but our late arrival kept us at the campsite preparing beds and dinner. We didn’t have to worry though, as the sun set right behind us in plenty of splendor as we cooked up our meal. I sent Hannah, my photographer and appreciator of all things beautiful, out to take some pictures instead of making the salad. Life is too short to miss sunsets at the Badlands. She jumped at the opportunity. It truly was quite the sunset. We don’t often see them tucked in our little cove in NC. We’re not on top of our mountain, we’re in it, and so the most we get to see are prettily colored clouds unless we make a special trek way up high somewhere.
By the time we had camp set up and the wet swimsuits flapping on the clothesline and dinner made and ready to eat it, was getting dusky. The boys wanted to sit outside so we had chairs set out along the canyon edge. But the wind kept knocking them over. So we blessed the food, thanking the Lord for His provision of the shoelace and that such a simple fix had worked, and were about to settle into the camper to eat instead, when Tim exclaimed, “What on earth is that?” And of course we all clamored outside to see what on earth it was. I expected an animal in the distance, but it was a red globe hovering over the far distant horizon - another thing we don’t have in the mountains: horizon. Here it is endless, stretching for miles and miles. The moon was rising just as the sun had set in its fiery splendor. As an extra bonus, a storm was forming directly to the right of the moon. So instead of hunkering in the camper, we decided to brave the wind and eat our Alaskan codfish dinner outside and storm watch.
It was one of those evenings I hope I’ll remember forever. I wasn’t expecting much from the Badlands. I’d seen it before, 19 years ago and it was ok - nothing terribly spectacular. It was really just another stop on the way home to help break up the trip a bit. Because, let’s face it, the middle of the country just doesn’t hold a candle to the magnificence of the western Rockies. But this evening had me realize just why Laura Ingalls Wilder loved this land so much. Not the Badlands specifically, but the prairie. We watched God’s fireworks for the next hour or more, the storm too far to even hear, but the dark clouds would stand out sharply as burst after burst of lighting glowed behind them. Every few minutes a bolt would streak to the ground, hot and brilliant against the dark storm. It must have been an incredible storm because the frequency of the bursts really was like the grand finale on the 4th of July. I was wondering what on earth that would do to our camper if it made its way towards us, as the wind was blowing right into our faces, but as we watched, the storm shifted more to the right rather than move closer in. Malachi and I were cuddled in the same camping chair, after he had hinted that he wanted to warm up with me. I was pleased he still wasn’t too old to cuddle in a blanket at 11. As he settled in with his head on my shoulder he said, “Thanks for taking us on this trip mom, it’s been really amazing.” Zip and Moriah had taken over Tim’s lap as Zippy turned her puppy eyes on Dad and begged for the ice cream we had put away for another night (our best laid plans had us eating ice cream at 7pm that night, not 9pm). Micah begged, everyone begged and finally everyone had permission to rush into the camper to dish up a waffle cone of Mint Swirl. We settled back in, happily licking and chatting while we continued to ooh and ah over the storm that was raging an hour away over the heart of the park. Behind us, the Black Hills that we had just left that day were standing out against the red sky like a caravan of purple elephants. It really was magical, one of those nights you just don’t want to end. It seemed a fitting close to our trip. Bittersweet as it comes to an end - all of us longing to be back home, but also sad to see it over, knowing that it will never be like this again. Kids will be flying the nest, Zip, the baby, won’t be a baby next year at 5… the next time will mean missing faces and different people as we grow and change. The trip that had seemed to last forever but now had gone by so quickly… how could 7 weeks be so hard and yet also so darn beautiful??
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