Americana

From Cheyenne to Rapid City the countryside is undeniably Western - wide skies, rocky outcroppings gleaming white against rippling grasses, dark smudges of pine in the distance. My mind drifted from the pavement in front of me back to my grandparents' house in California. I thought about another age, another version of America - a squeaky clean, jaunty America that my mom grew up in, rubbing shoulders with WW2 veterans and astronauts. I thought of the row of old hardbound books called the "Signature Series" that I grew up reading. Heroes of the past: Crazy Horse, Buffalo Bill, Davy Crockett, Theodore Roosevelt, illustrated with the confident idealism of the 40's and 50's floating along in happy succession.  The countryside out the window fit my daydreaming:  we passed a herd of buffalo, and drove and drove and drove.

Matt and Krista stopped at Fort Laramie - got to see an archaeological dig in action as they were pulling up some old boots and a beautiful cut glass perfume bottle. Tam and I had an impromptu picnic on the roadside among grasshoppers and dragonflies. There was a strong wind blowing, and the kids opted to crawl around between the front and backseats instead of getting out, which made for some interesting eating locations. I lost the car keys somewhere during this time, and we scoured the ground around both cars just to make sure we weren't leaving $300 behind on a dirt road in Wyoming, then pulled out the emergency set that Jeff had so thoughtfully left in the center consul (how did he know?).

We read some books about cowboys, Plains Indians, and looked at pictures of life in the Wild West. Vera worked on her states maps, cutting out icons and placing them along our route. Since we were en route, it was tough to supervise the placement of these things, and I'm pretty sure some cacti and mountains ended up where they shouldn't have, but it was a good exercise for cutting and route planning.

Cell service is pretty spotty, and we actually lost Matt and Krista for most of the day - finally caught up to them in the Black Hills outside of Crazy Horse Memorial and spent our happy reunion looking at Lakota Jewelry, large buffalo hides and woven baskets.
The highlight of the day was the group of Native American girls doing traditional dances to the soulful singing of an Ojibwe from Minnesota.. He explained each song before he sang it, and described their intricate outfits, one of which had hundreds of silver cone shaped jingles hanging from it. Vera and Brodie were riveted for the entire performance.

The Black Hills are an amazingly beautiful surprise after miles of deserted grassland. Despite the fact that we were trying desperately to find Matt and Krista, with no backup plan if we couldn't connect with each other, I had a general feeling of well being. Here was a slice of the America you read about in Sunset magazines from the 60's - kids in shorts leaping from huge boulders into jeweled lakes, a ring of tents neatly apportioned on the shore like sweaters at Benetton, air licking my shoulders at just the right temperature. The piney smell of campfire joined us on the way up the hill to Mt. Rushmore, making the sensory enjoyment complete. I half expected my mom and her siblings in their childhood selves, mirages from a mythical American golden period, dressed in plaid shirts and coonskin caps, to come bounding out from the trees giving Indian war yelps.

Mt. Rushmore, as expected, was kind of a flop. Basically hike up the hill between flags, look at the icon of American dominance over nature, or what Americans love best - big things - take a picture, use the bathroom and head out again. I'm sure there are aspects of the monument that are educational and fascinating, but my kids are too little to understand and, to be honest, I find the whole thing underwhelming.

Someday I want to come back to the Black Hills, though, and leap off a boulder with reckless abandon. Maybe I'll even find a coonskin cap for my kids to wear, tell them stories of how their grandma traveled across the country in a station wagon with no air conditioning, how life was bigger, different, slower, more idealistic; life in technicolor.