No Regrets!

Returned to Mount Rushmore first thing in the morning so that we could catch the morning sun shining on the presidents’ faces.

We walked along the trail in front of the memorial for some different perspectives, had a quick bite in the café, and then hit the road for Crazy Horse Memorial, the Native American answer to Mount Rushmore and a privately funded operation. The sculpture itself is massive but far from complete, so it’s not all that impressive.

Next to the parking lot is an enormous visitor center filled with “authentic” Native American souvenirs and cosmetic jewelry. All this schlock really cheapens the experience for me, and I appreciate the tastefulness of the National Parks in this regard.

At $10/person, the Crazy Horse experience isn’t worth it. The view from the highway is good enough.

Aside from the big billboards and cheesy attractions, the landscape of the surrounding area is beautiful. Craggy, anthropomorphic rocks carpet poke through a blanket of dark green forest. Stef and I think they should expand on the Mount Rushmore idea by carving American heroes, maybe one from each state, into the mountains everywhere. It would be a lot of work, for sure, but the place would make a killing.

Our next stop was Wind Cave, one of the largest caves in the country. Inside the cave, they didn’t allow tripods and didn’t have railings for me to use to take longer exposures, but it didn’t really matter. It was mostly a dark, narrow walkway through vertical cracks, no big expanses or creative lighting like they have at Carlsbad and Luray. Stef seemed to enjoy it, but I found it underwhelming.

Lunch was in Custer. We picked an authentic-looking Western restaurant and shared a buffalo burger. Tastes halfway between beef and lamb. I enjoyed it.

There seem to be a lot of Russian and Ukrainian exchange students in the area. Our young waitress was Russian. As I usually do with foreigners, I tried to joke around with her to show her that Americans (everyone assumes I am American) aren’t all stupid and humorless. When she ran through the list of dressings for our house salad, I smiled and told her I wanted Russian dressing. As I said it, it occurred to me that she might not know what Russian dressing is (it’s not really Russian), and that it might sound awkward. After an uncomfortable pause, the waitress excused herself. An embarrassed Stef glared at me and told me it sounded like a pick-up line.

We hit the road again. Stef volunteered to do most of the driving so that I could work on this blog and my photos in the car, which was a fantastic idea. I’m making slow progress on the blog, but with sunlight streaming in through the windows, it’s nearly impossible to see my photos. Do they have lightproof goggles that you can hook up to a laptop that can give you a view of your display? Nerdy, but I’d get a pair.

We stopped in Deadwood, Wyoming, since it has a cool name and is supposed to be a historic western town. Turns out it’s not much more than cheap-looking casinos and souvenir shops.

We made a pit stop at Mt. Moriah Cemetery, where “Wild Bill” Hickock and “Calamity” Jane are buried. By all accounts, Jane was an ugly hooker obsessed with Hickock, whose dying wish was to be buried next to him. She got her wish, but I wonder how Hickock feels about it.

The last leg of today’s journey was to Devil’s Tower. In the official literature, Devil’s Tower doesn’t have an apostrophe, but I’m going break convention for grammatical accuracy. Devil’s Tower is an oddly shaped magmatic intrusion made famous by the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” It’s one of those weird places that I’ve always wanted to visit.

We arrived just as the sun was setting. At the park entrance, Stef and I bought an annual National Park pass for $80, which should save us a bundle on this trip alone. The drive into the park took us past a field filled with friendly, chirping prairie dogs. We pulled onto the turnout to sat hello, but we had to push on to beat the quickly setting sun.

The visitor’s center takes you pretty close to the base of the tower. Too close, I think. When you’re that close, Devil’s Tower doesn’t stick out from the surrounding landscape, and it’s much harder to appreciate its grandeur. We took a short walk around the base. The sun painted the rocks orange, and the sunset filled the sky with color.

After Labor Day, everything in the area starts to close down, including the restaurants. We were lucky enough to find a little diner just up the road, called the Tower View Restaurant, still serving food. The husband and wife who ran it and the adjoining gift shop were very friendly. Stef described them as a “Bob and Ethel.”

We arrived at our campground near the base of Devil’s Tower just as the last wisp of light disappeared into the night.

We’re spread out in the back of our truck, tucked into sleeping bags. I’m exhausted. It’s only 9:30pm, but it feels like it’s 2am. Another big day tomorrow.

After landing in Rapid City and getting a warm feeling inside when we saw our three bags waiting for us, we hopped over to the Hertz counter and picked up our shiny, big, white Toyota Highlander. Stepping out into the rental car parking lot, the air was fresh, with the scent of a distant wildfire. And the view was tremendous. Stef and I were excited to hit the road.

The short drive to Mount Rushmore took us through the Black Hills, so named because the dark green Ponderosa pines covering the hills makes them look almost black, especially when a cloud passes over. The landscapes were magnificent. Immediately, I knew that I’d need to resist the urge to stop the car every five minutes to take another landscape shot.

My trusty GPS took us straight to the Mount Rushmore parking lot, where Stef took extra care parking our big Highlander. After a short walk past the visitor center and café, there we were, standing right in front of George, Tom, Teddy, and Abe. After a bumpy start to the trip, it was so nice to finally be seeing something cool.

It’s bigger than I thought. And the perspective is weird. The trees below make it look like the whole thing belongs on a model train set. The sculptures are intricately carved, and striations in the rock slice through the presidents’ faces. Stef and I agree that the best thing about the sculpture is Abe Lincoln’s pouty lip.

We walked around a bit, and I took pictures like crazy. Unfortunately, the late afternoon sun is behind the memorial, so I vowed to return the next morning for some proper pictures.

When it got dark, we were happy to learn that there was a nightly performance and light show at Mount Rushmore, so we stuck around. I staked a good place for my tripod, and the crowd started to gather around us.

Having a tripod and a big camera makes me the go-to guy for “Can you take my picture?” We joked around with most of those people, but one particularly child-molester-looking guy that wandered over creeped Stef out. He had it all: the haircut that stayed unstylish no matter how many times he ran his hand through it, the engineer glasses, the mustache, the tucked in dress shirt, the Members Only jacket, the short pant legs, the awkward pauses, and the mistimed laughs. He made me take five pictures of him.

The “performance” was a park ranger coming out and giving us a melodramatic speech about the four presidents and their upbringing, followed by a short film about Mount Rushmore and its construction. The “light show” was a slowly illuminated spotlight on the presidents.

When it was time to find our campground, my GPS wasn’t so trusty. It led up into the hills on windy, pitch-black roads, and then told us to take a turn on a road that didn’t exist. Don’t trust the Garmin when you’re looking for the Mount Rushmore KOA. After stopping at three grungy motels for prices and availability, we finally bit the bullet and got a room. Probably best, since the beds were probably more comfortable than sleeping in a tent, and we badly needed a good night’s sleep.

It was a bumpy day, and moods flared, but everything worked out. We woke up this morning vowing to be in a better mood and looking forward to the first full day of our adventure.

Stef had a rough day at work and arrived at my house in bad mood. Her mood got worse when she realized I hadn’t packed yet.

True to form, I waited until the last possible minute to start packing. In fact, I didn’t even sleep last night, rummaging around my house looking for all my old Trek America paraphernalia while Stef tried desperately to sleep. Everything was finally packed at 4:11am, and the cab pulled up at 4:15am. The 5:45am flight is definitely the earliest flight I’ve ever taken.

Our first stop was Charlotte, due south from DC and annoyingly out of the way for a trip to Rapid City. But it’s a hub for US Airways, so a necessary stop.

After waiting for about an hour, we boarded our flight to Denver.

I like walking through first class and looking at all the people sitting there. Are they rich? Famous? What celebrity with a face I don’t recognize is sitting right in front of me? I’ve never actually seen a recognizable celebrity sitting in first class. Where do they sit?

We were the last few to board the plane, so all the overheard bins were full and there wasn’t any room for our carry-ons. This was exacerbated by the fact that we were sitting in 4A and 4B, the front row where there are no seats in front to put our bags under. Stef and I had a big carry-on bag, two big backpacks, and a tripod. So we had a problem.

I walked to the front and asked the flight attendant what I should do.

“You’ll need to check it,” she replied.

“What if I have stuff that needs to stay with me?” I was referring to the thousands of dollars worth of camera and computer equipment that I had in the two backpacks. I was hoping she’d be kind enough to help me look for space in the overhead bins further back in the plane.

“Then, you’ll have to take another flight,” she replied.

I didn’t like that. First of all, if they tell you at the gate before boarding that each person may take two carry-ons, and then there is no room for any of your carry-ons, they should at least make an effort to try to find room for you, not threaten you.

I ended up jamming my backpack between a couple of other bags in one of the overhead bins, and we got an offer from one of the celebrities in first class to put Stef’s backpack under her seat. Begrudgingly, we checked Stef’s big carry-on bag and hoped that it would meet up with the rest of our luggage at the end of our journey.

Annoyed, I sat down in my seat with my laptop. One of the flight attendants, an older woman with short hair dyed red so aggressively that her scalp was stained, told me that the laptop I was holding needed to be stowed in the overhead bin. She and I both knew that there was no room in the overhead bins, but she just had to say it as part of procedure.

I got up, opened up a bin, found the first available crevice, shoved my laptop into it, and slammed the bin closed with enough force to send a message.

Without missing a beat, this red-haired flight attendant asked if she could have a word with me out in the galley. The “galley,” for those who don’t know, is that little area by the door that you walk through when you first board the plane.

“This is a three and a half hour flight, and I don’t need to deal with someone who acts like that. Do you want to get off and take the next flight?”

“I’ll be cool,” I coolly replied.

“OK, then.”

For a moment, I was pretty sure she was going to throw me off the plane. I hear frequent media reports of disorderly passengers being thrown off planes, and I get the impression that they pull the trigger on that sort of thing pretty quickly. I guess I was lucky. If I looked Muslim, I would surely have been kicked off.

All of this, of course, did nothing to put Stef into a better mood. Three hours into our vacation, and she’s already fed up with me. She told me that we should have boarded earlier, when our “zone” was first called. OK, fine.

Looking out the window, checkered farmland gave way to an open, brown expanse, and finally, the Rocky Mountains in the hazy, blue distance. After landing, we booked it across the airport, only to learn that we missed our connection. Stef’s mood worsened.

We were placed on standby for the next flight out, but didn’t get on that one either. Finally, we got confirmed seats on the next flight to Rapid City. Hopefully, we’ll get to there in a couple of hours, where our bags and rental car will be waiting for us, and we’ll get out to Mt. Rushmore before the sun goes down.

I’ve never been to Denver before. It sucks.

This has been a really slow year for travel for me, probably my slowest in a decade. In 2010, I’ve been wrapped up with a lot of personal drama that hasn’t really allowed me to escape. A few weeks ago, when I saw a break in my schedule, I planned a last-minute vacation to Yellowstone National Park with my long-time friend, Stefanie.

After finagling our work schedules to get nine days off, we decided to make it a road trip that included Mount Rushmore and Glacier National Park. Seems like this is a pretty common route for tourists, although most usually take about two weeks to do it.

High last-minute fares mean that we have to take a 5:45am flight out of DC, but everything else seems to be working out perfectly. We’ll be taking the trip after Labor Day, so most of the family caravans will be home with kids back in school. The higher altitude and cooler weather means that the landscapes should be awash with fall colors, and there might even be a sprinkling of snow in Glacier National Park. And Going to the Sun Road, the main attraction of Glacier National Park, closes for the season on September 20, so we’ll just be able to get that in. And every night that the weather cooperates, we’ll be camping under the stars.

Stef and I have spent the last few days preparing. We got guidebooks and came up with a detailed road trip on Google Maps. Stef takes camping very seriously, so we took a trip to REI to get check out all the gear and get some new all-weather camping clothes. And since it’s looking to be a photographic extravaganza for me, I rented a huge telephoto lens to take with me. I hope Stef doesn’t mind carrying it.

Definitely looking forward to taking some time off, leaving my troubles behind, and breathing some fresh mountain air.