The Mount Rushmore Story

 Pajama party on I-90.  Minnesota Public Radio and me.  I was practically in heaven.

 Look at the little photo bomber sneaking in!

 As I said, the drive from Madison, Wisconsin to Rapid City, South Dakota, was to be our longest.  The GPS said 11 hours, so I knew it would take longer with stops.  We left the hotel at 5:45 am and had a very enjoyable drive across Wisconsin, Minnesota and South Dakota.  It was breathtaking the whole way until we got probably 100 miles into South Dakota.  It wasn't as beautiful then, and much less green, but soon we were into the Badlands and it was really interesting terrain.  The kids were so good in the car the whole three weeks.  They were so good I couldn't believe it.  I loved this long drive across I-90.  I found a good NPR station with good reception that I was able to listen to for hours in the early morning while the kids dozed.  Aaahhh, heaven.  The car, NPR, beautiful scenery, miles whizzing by.  So my thing!

Traveling across South Dakota, it's apparent that the South Dakotans have spent all their energy farming and building tacky tourist destinations and none of their energy building cities.  We bypassed the corn palace but did pull off the freeway when my car was almost on empty, at a big sign that said, "GAS!"  It turned out to be a real ghost town, with a boarded up gas station and an actual manufactured ghost town that looked like it had once been a tourist trap.  A ghost town ghost town.  Wow!  I told the kids to explore, but to be careful of ghosts.  They are pretty sure the place was crawling with them, and I wouldn't be surprised.  It was a tad creepy!  However, it saved us about $70 compared to what we would have spent if we had stopped at "1882," the ghost town tourist trap down the road.  After our failed attempt to get gas, I got worried we wouldn't see another gas station before we ran out of gas.  I was berating myself for waiting so long, but there is always another opportunity for South Dakota to take your money, and Wall Drug wasn't too far down the road.

I knew the kids, especially Freestone, would be in gift shop heaven here, so I planned to stay for an hour.  We had no trouble filling the whole hour browsing through rock shops, t-shirt stores with half-price Sturgis shirts, (the ride was a couple weeks ago), jackalopes and bumper stickers.  Each kid picked out a 30 cent rock, and they were all happy.  Wall is actually a fun place to stop, but it's like the casino in the Lightening Thief.  You can totally lose track of time and never get out.  We had to make a concerted effort to escape and get back on the road.

Around 4 pm, we drove into an exceedingly heavy rainstorm.  I would have pulled over, but I couldn't see well enough to know where to pull over to.  So I kept going with the windshield wipers at full speed and the rain so loud, we could barely hear Xanthe shouting, "Mooooooom!?  Where are we going?"  I think she kept asking because when I said, Mount Rushmore, that didn't mean anything to her, so she was trying to get an answer that made sense.

And thus began what for me was the low point of the trip, but for the kids, was every bit as thrilling as anything we had done.  Because of the rain, it was quite dark when we arrived in Rapid City.  There was construction getting to our motel, so it was a long last half-hour of the drive.  We were excited, though, because we were staying in these cute little cottages!  When we arrived, I was so happy.  The woman in the office was nice...until I mentioned that there were six of us.  She freaked. out.  Like, started shaking and wringing her hands.  She did not know what to do.  I knew what to do:  let me stay in the four-person cabin with my five small children and move on with her life.

This whole trip, things have gone our way, over and over.  We always get our way.  People are always nice to us, we have been able to cancel reservations that we shouldn't have been able to, we never had any problem with more than four people staying in a room.  So when the woman said that she couldn't cancel my reservation and my only option was to rent an additional cabin for two of my kids to stay in, I was the one who started shaking.  I was livid that she would make a decision that seemed ridiculous and inhumane.  And I was livid that I had to spend that extra money.  The cottages were very clean and cute, but certainly not luxurious.  On the other hand, Ari and Freestone were excited about having their own cabin!

I tried to play that up, so that they would enjoy the experience, I but I couldn't shake my anger at this woman.  It was still raining hard, and so dark, but my plan had been to see Mount Rushmore at night because of the lighting ceremony that they do at 8 pm every night.  We went, and I desperately tried to get an a positive headspace that would allow me to have as much fun as the kids, but I couldn't do it.

We went to Sonic for dinner, which was fun because they brought the food to our car.  Really, kids are so easy to please.  We got to Mount Rushmore at about 7:50 in the dark and pouring rain.  We were literally the only car on the road, so that was a blessing.  I'm sure Mt. Rushmore is usually packed.  I timed it perfectly, but lo and behold, the rangers had started the patriotic lighting ceremony EARLY because of the thunder and lightning.  How often do you think that happens?

So there we were in the parking garage, listening to the ceremony being piped over the loudspeakers, putting on everyone's jackets, and Xanthe wants to bring her tow panda blankies.  First of all, an 8-year-old really shouldn't want to be dragging around her blankies, for crying out loud.  I told her no, they would get wet, but she cried and I caved.

Picture us running up to Mount Rushmore, Xanthe dragging her dumb blankies, Tziporah in the stroller with bare feet, trying to make it for at least part of the ceremony that had started EARLY!  There were maybe 50 other brave souls there, standing around in rain ponchos with cameras.  I looked up and the presidents' faces were tiny!  At least that's how I perceived them.  I felt swindled, like it was some big conspiracy that everyone drives here to see this.  As the patriotic music blared and we all imagined a flag being raised, because the rain was too strong to raise an actual flag, I was managing Xanthe's blankie crisis.  Turns out, the "pandas" were getting wet, just like I said.  So instead of looking up at the monument, Xanthe was trying to stuff them in her shirt.

It was an encapsulation of countless scenarios over the course of the trip, where we are standing in front of something like the Lincoln Memorial or the St. Louis arch and Xanthe is focused on a spot on her shirt, or flopped on the ground because she's thirsty and saw someone with a drink.  I have observed Xanthe on this trip, and felt compassion for her because she doesn't seem to be able to experience and enjoy things like other people do.

But at this moment, I was not feeling compassionate.  I was feeling irate that I couldn't enjoy the moment because Xanthe was sucking up my last ounce of energy.  Just then, a huge surge of lightning lit up the sky for three or four seconds, flashing different colors behind the monument.  It was incredible!  Ptolemy pointed and shouted, "They're lighting it up pink and blue!"  He thought the lightning was just for us.  And maybe it was.  Maybe it was.

Guess what?  The kids (except blankie girl) remember Mount Rushmore as one of the highlights of their trip.  The faces!  The lightning!  The rain!  The gift shop!  Going back to Sonic after Mt. Rushmore for shakes!  The cabins!  Oh, the cabins!  Ari and Freestone were beside themselves.  After I put the other kids in their beds (they were asleep by the time we got home), I wanted to salvage the night for myself.  For heaven's sake, I was at Mount Rushmore with my kids.  Dream come true.

I knocked softly on Ari and Freestone's cabin door.  I invited them to come outside and sit in the rain with me, around a soggy fire pit in the center of a ring of diminutive red cabins, TWO of which were all ours for the night.  I breathed in the humid air, felt the mist on my face, snuggled into my damp Davis Dart sweatshirt and listened to my precious, optimistic, un-jaded children talk about the night through their eyes.  I joked about how dumb it was, and Freestone said cheerfully, "Mom, you're the only one who was disappointed in Mount Rushmore."

I wanted to hug that boy and cry, but I just said, "Free, you're a good kid."

He said, "I want to come back here on our next trip."