Hi, y'all. I finally had a good vacation, and I'll tell y'all about it now. (Nope, the word y'all still sounds ridiculous to me, despite my having used it twice in two sentences.)
We'd never been to the Badlands or Devil's Tower, and I was almost convinced that the state of Wyoming didn't even exist, so, in the fine tradition of Chevy Chase movies, Margaret and I took a Road Trip. It was wonderful.
First, we brought Margaret's old '83 Accord to our Über-mechanic, who pronounced it fit for driving. (Yes, we took Margaret's car. The Hondastein - made up of pieces of old dead Hondas. More on this later.) Then we swept and vacuumed the inside of the car at our Über-carwash, which was a requirement of mine. If you'd ever seen the inside of Margaret's old car, you would understand.
Then, we hit the road Tuesday night (6/29) and made it to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Not much happened, since we drove at night.
We awoke casually on Wednesday (6/30) and drove clear across South Dakota, which only took a few hours. More importantly, I got to drive a significant stretch of I-90. This is only relevant because I had practically no prior experience driving a stick. I mean, in PRINCIPLE, I can drive a stick. Sure, no problem. But, in practice, well, I never really got out of the on-deck circle. (For fun, let's review my prior vehicles, all of which contained automatic transmissions: a 1979 Ford Fairmont, a 1979 Chevy Caprice, and a 1986 Toyota Tercel. I can recall getting stranded in all of them, usually in remote parts of New York state, and once in Canada! Ah, sweet memories...) Long story short - I can get it into 5th without incident, and I can go from 5th to neutral on the exit ramp. I am Riding-The-Clutch-Man, and I have come to terms with my inflexible driving style. Margaret did all the driving through the small towns with traffic lights (because I didn't feel like having the South Dakota natives point and laugh), and I did about half of the highway driving. Surprisingly, no damage done to the car, and I only stalled once in reverse. (Amazingly enough, the Honda is still on its original clutch, even after my driving skillz,,,)
Most of South Dakota is pretty desolate, as you might imagine. Flat. Cows. More cows. A tree here and there. I got the impression that most of South Dakota exists so that you can gas up and get out of South Dakota.
All that changed once we reached the Badlands in the western part of the state. The Badlands are absolutely astounding, and we far and away the best thing we saw on our trip. My measly words can't even begin to describe the rock formations, so I won't even try. I got some great pictures of Margaret standing by the pretty rocks, and one of them will end up on my desk at work. Just north of the Badlands (off I-90) is Wall Drug, which is the South Of The Border of the upper midwest. We didn't even stop.
We stayed overnight in Rapid City, South Dakota. We were directed by some locals to a Heritage Festival (although I don't know exactly whose heritage), where some mildly ethnic food was served, and Lamont Cranston (sp?) was playing guitar up on the stage. Neat!
We got up nice and early on Thursday (7/1), and did most of the touristy things in the Mount Rushmore area (SW corner of SD) all in one day. I will summarize and give capsule reviews, à là Leonàrd Màltin:
- Breakfast at Rapid City. 1-1/2 stars. Toast and juice, with no meat and nothing deep-fried. Disappointing, considering that the state of South Dakota has some anti-animal-activist billboards. (That's pro-hunting.)
- Mount Rushmore. 2-1/2 stars. A big mountain with four big stone heads carved in it. Impressive. We didn't hike the trails around it, so it was pretty brief. I hypothesized that the rest of their bodies was also carved into the mountain but was mistaken left underground, and was abruptly silenced by Margaret.
- Black Hills Wildlife Preserve. 3 stars. It's got little teeny two-lane roads that snake through it, and it's very pretty from the car. We encountered a buffalo that was walking down the road in the opposite direction (and on the proper side of the road, too!) Naturally, I didn't have my camera ready and had to settle for pictures of some antelope later on.
- Crazy Horse. 2 stars. From the road, we could see the mountain where they'd begun carving, but all there is is the top of his head and one of the fingers on his hand. ("Pull my finger." Ha! That just kills me...) The admission price to the park was pretty steep, so we just turned around in the parking lot entrance and took a picture. Maybe it's impressive when you're standing right in front of it, but now I'll never know.
- Hill City. 3 stars. Well, I guess the whole town doesn't deserve three stars, but the little mom-n-pop place that served us buffalo burgers for lunch was great. Buffalo is tasty.
- Lead, South Dakota. (pronounced leed, not led as one would think.) 2-1/2 stars. Lead is a town of about 500 people, where one-third of the population works for the Homestake gold mine. We got a tour, and it was pretty cool. I guess the total daily output of the mine is about one brick-sized brick of gold, or somewhere around $100,000 a day. We didn't get to go underground, though. Fooey.
- A Petrified Forest just southeast of Sturgis. 2 stars. Apparently, having a few petrified stumps lying on the ground qualifies it as a forest. It's my first experience with petrified wood, which looks like wood but feels like rock. Margaret liked it much more than I did, and practically cleaned out the gift shop.
- We stayed in Thursday night in Sundance, Wyoming. A nagging voice in my head says that that's where the Sundance Kid got his name, but that must have been way before we got there. We didn't meet anybody famous.
- Donuts for breakfast. 4 stars.
Friday morning (7/2), we drove up to Devil's Tower, which is the giant-sized rock from Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. (Oddly enough, no signs about the movie or where it was filmed. Maybe it wasn't shot at Devil's Tower after all...) It was, for lack of a better expression, really cool. There are trails that you can hike around near the base, and if you sign up beforehand, you can climb up one of the faces. It's not for beginners, and you have to be quite the rock-climber-with-gear to attempt it. I got one superb picture of Margaret's car in front of Devil's Tower, which will undoubtedly be shown to future Honda owners everywhere.
The rest of Wyoming seemed even more desolate than South Dakota. We passed through the teeny towns of Moorcroft, Upton, Newcastle, Lusk, Torrington, and not one made any impression at all. I ate an ill-advised chili-burger in one of them.
We stopped at Scottsbluff, Nebraska, which was sorta scenic and very windy. It would have been much nicer if we hadn't just seen the Badlands, which dwarfs all in its path.
We ended up in Yuma, Colorado at Margaret's mom's house on Friday night. Saturday (7/3) was tied up with family stuff, except for a three-hour pilgrimage to Don's Discs, an outstanding record store in Denver. I dropped a few bucks, but isn't that what a vacation is for?
Sunday (7/4) was fun - we threw a 60th birthday party for Margaret's mom, and the rest of the family flew in from all parts of the country. It was a surprise party, and boy was she surprised. Her birthday isn't until November, so she didn't suspect a thing.
Sunday night, the guys across the cul-de-sac from my brother-in-law must have shot off a thousand dollars worth of fireworks. No joke - they had 20 or 30 people sitting in front of the house on lawn chairs, and they must have spent a pretty penny. The two that went off on the ground sent us running for cover, but it was still very impressive.
Monday (7/5) - we saw some friends and family in Denver, including Margaret's Uncle Bob. Uncle Bob is a Civil War buff, and has been involved with re-enactments and stuff for over twenty years. He's a collector, and has the coolest stuff of anyone I know. Lots of fun.
We gave Margaret's old Honda back to her brother, the very person who gave it to her all those years ago. He likes it so much that he'll probably drive it around town. Whod'a thunk? It still gets around 40 miles per gallon, so it's better than the gigantic pickup trucks for little trips. Use it well...
Tuesday & Wednesday (7/6 & 7/7) - we rented a U-Haul and loaded it up with furniture from Margaret's mom's house in Yuma, as did Margaret's sister and brother. Woo-hoo! Antique furniture! Now we can get rid of the crappy yard sale stuff that we've had for years! Life is good.
Thursday (7/8) - we drove from Yuma, Colorado to Minneapolis. This was less fun than one would imagine for three reasons: (1) The alignment of the U-Haul's front tires was so far off that it was a perpetual struggle to keep it in the lane, (2) The U-Haul got 7 miles per gallon, and (3) It took 16-1/2 hours to drive from Yuma to Minneapolis, which is way too far to drive in one day. We'll know for next time.
We got in at around 2:30 AM on Friday morning (7/9), and I made a token appearance at work for about an hour. (I have 74 new e-mail messages! Hooray!) We spent the weekend unpacking and rearranging furniture, and if we ever finish I'm sure the house will look smashing.
Plus, we got rid of Margaret's old Honda and found someone who will use it! We're down to two cars between us, and I'm not buying another car for at least ten years...
So, welcome back. (Although I'm the one who's been gone, I feel it's appropriate to welcome back to wherever you are now.)
Talk to y'all soon. (Nope, still sounds silly.)
Ron
