Redux, the Black Hills

“Sweetheart, you can’t have the cornbread.”

Harper resettled her tufted rear on the linoleum, craning her two-tone chocolate brown eyes back to me for permission.

I only barely resisted the wiles of my puppy dog.

Harper is at once my joy and my daily annoyance.  Let’s be real.  I love her to pieces, but when she’s tearing apart the couch or chewing on my Bose noise-cancelling headphones bought in a consultant’s fervor to block out plane noise, I sometimes wonder why the little devil entered my family life. 

I’ll often quip that part of why I left consulting was because I couldn’t get a dog while always on the road.  Now, I have a furball lunging for my dinner.  And also settling herself on the lowest step, waiting for Mom to come back whenever she leaves the RV.  My heart. 

This week found us in the luxury Elkorn RV Park & Resort, home to espresso-on-demand, RV cleaners, and, more importantly, the biggest dog park we’ll see this entire trip.  My marginal propensity to spend just changed (holla’ econ folks)…

I don’t know about you, but I’ve got some intrinsic views of “the West” as wild, untamed, and full of adventure.  As I’m finding, while this reality was fairly objectively true, it was also the product of mass marketing to align the American psyche (and household spending) with romanticizing “the West”.  I’m not entirely sure I care either way.

And so, we visit graves.  Traces of the past, for the present to revisit.  Remember Deadwood?  We ventured to Mt. Moriah Cemetery in Deadwood, SD to see the gravesites of Wild Bill Hickock, Calamity Jane, and Seth Bullock. 

I think this Seth Bullock’s grave is a spoiler for the HBO Deadwood series…

While the ‘celebrities’ are quite fascinating, I find myself sidetracked by the many other cemetery sections…a large Jewish holding, the Civil War veterans, three potters’ fields of unnamed victims of dysentery, cholera, and smallpox. 

Side note: vaccinate you and yours.  That is all.  

We stopped by Deadwood’s main street to try moonshine (fail, it was awful, and imported from Tennessee). Better use of time is to snuggle the pups.

Thursday, we ventured to the Adams’ House, a time-frozen picture of wealth circa-late 1800s in the Black Hills wilds.  Masks all the way, our 12-year-old, I mean, college tour guide detailed the workings of the Adams family and their role in Deadwood. 

Apparently all of my pictures are on Carolyn’s phone…

I love the stories of history, the people who lived.  The passions, sorrows, anxieties, and delights of our forebearers.  Our own fervors will pass, replaced by the next millennia of humankinds’ efforts, each individual, they think.  We’ve never really been alone in all of history; someone has lived our story.

Carolyn cautions me about traversing too many philosophical trails.

This week in the RV was one of just even starting to live what we thought was real life.  We were wrong, as I’d learn a month-plus later.  I was still holding on to some wanderlust idea of working, living, and touring every single day of this ridiculous adventure.  How very, very tiring.  But we kept up the attempt!

Here’s the reality…

Do you have dirty dishes in your sink?  Me too, several days…

Is there well-intentioned produce decaying in your fridge?  Pay no mind to those slimy things in mine.

Have you cleaned your bathroom recently?  *avoids eye contact*

Did you exercise today?  Please don’t check the last time I logged into beachbody.com

Real talk, I’m showing you the beautiful pictures, the ones I hope you like, the ones I’m pushing and driving this whole adventure for to see and do new things.  Who wants to look at the slimy, smelly, dirty reality of actual everyday life?  Rest assured, that is my reality too.  Life is still life, maybe until I’m uber wealthy.  But even then I have thoughts, for another post. Remember Carolyn’s cautions…

This tension will come up in the following weeks; here we see the first lights.  But set aside the troubles…mercifully, the weekend relieved these pressures momentarily.  Balance is kinda tough, eh?

I was gunning to show Carolyn the fabled ‘Devil’s Tower’, rising from the wild prairie wilderness of eastern Wyoming.  Before our childhood South Dakota trip, Dad had sat down all four kids to watch some alien abduction movie from the ‘70s where Devil’s Tower played a driving role.  12-year-old Laura Beth was mostly concerned with the horror potential and watched the film with careful reserve.  I don’t think any repercussions persist.  I think.

In reality, I remember the prayer flags and the wild rock rising from the ground.  Devil’s Tower is a sacred space for the Native Americans, many displaced by the American government.  I can hardly count myself competent to remark on these scarred, deep relations, but suffice there was something in me that warmed at seeing the prayer flags again.  The sacredness of this space persists.

I convinced (tricked?) Carolyn into hiking a ways with me at Devil’s Tower.  We loaded up the three-liter Osprey day hiking backpack, dropped off the pups at a local daycare, and set out for new adventures.

What’s best after hours of hiking with a heavy pack at elevation?  Sitting in your air-conditioned ride, motoring through Spearfish Canyon for the fabulous views.

Spearfish Canyon was originally part of the Black and Yellow Trail, which linked the South Dakotan Black Hills with Yellowstone in Wyoming.  Imagine 1920s Model Ts sputtering through these canyon walls. 

I wish I had the discipline and timing for another sunset or sunrise visit.  Turns out transitioning time zones was the best way to achieve such great opportunities.  Morning wake-ups will be a perpetual challenge while in Mountain Time (-2 hours EST, oi).

Meanwhile, Harper’s whining again while the cornbread cools.  She really ought to tuck herself and head for bed, same for myself.  After all, the child is approaching a significant milestone…stay tuned. The furry kid is not Instagram ready, let’s leave it at that.