You made it a year, kid.

“LAURA BETH!!”

I dropped my phone and lunged around the RV.

Carolyn held back a snarling Bella, straining in her red harness. Harper, in her other hand, bounded from side to side, using her big girl voice to call the campground’s attention.

Neighbors enjoying their dinner edged away. Walkers gave us a wide berth. It felt like the whole world was watching our devolving scene of an evening.

It was chaos.

It was a rabbit.

My sweet puppy dog. You weren’t made for Instagram, were you?

Like any Millennial dog mom, I made a big fuss my of furry child’s first birthday. Hats, candles, buttons, treats, cake, party favors, and new toys. Dewy-eyed images of the perfect picture…with Harper blurred in the background eyeing her homemade birthday cake with trained reserve…came to mind.

That was not reality.

Nevertheless, I pressed on. Maybe I could bribe the kid and sneak a few pictures? That worked, sort of. Bella regally accepted her festive hat, while Miss Harpsichord…struggled.

(Bella in blue below, Harper in green. Someone thought to color-coordinate their hats to their harnesses and even to Carolyn’s cap. But really, this is real life, not on Ista…I don’t even have an account.)

More bribes might do the trick…

Also, I’m a little nervous to show my fingernails (now you’ll monitor every image for any missteps). They’re usually sporting a fine layer of grime, layers of torn off nail edges, and a cut or two near by. RV living doesn’t seem amenable to fine fingers.

This week found us enjoying the campground, working and living. We didn’t know it yet, but this would be one of the nicest campgrounds we’d stay at. I tried to run one day…3 miles of huffing and puffing at 5,000’ later in the South Dakotan sun and that activity wasn’t too interesting any more.

There were a few highlights of our stay…first, was the storm.

Have y’all been to South Dakota during a tornado warning? That’s some scary stuff. Insert your own colorful word as desired.

Awnings flapping, RV rocking, pitch black evening as the storm clouds rolled in. Think evil Disney villain with purple lightning flashes across the sky. If you told me Ursula, Governor Ratcliffe, Hades, and Maleficent were having Wine Down Wednesday, I’d have offered you a bottle of dark red cab and high tailed it to the nearest storm shelter.

That was a stressful night. Hail? Yes. 60 MPH wind? You got it. Pelting rain? Ouch absolutely. Two sopping wet humans and two drowned rats of puppy dogs later, we made it to the laundry facility and hunkered down for a few hours. On a Wednesday. In the middle of the night.

Remember this is real life? The bosses still expected us online the next day.

But we made it, to work another day. And another, and another. Adulting seems like mostly a lot of work.

As our reservation ended and it was time to head south, we packed up for Hermosa, SD. Just an hour of drive time, Carolyn advised me this would be my easiest drive day – and so far, she’s right. We were gunning for the lower Black Hills, near Custer State Park. Wow, what a place.

We arrived on Friday, our campground located about an hour from most of the local sites. We’re still learning the Tin Can and it’s capabilities, hence the carefulness with selected locals for campgrounds.

That night we kicked off a series of Custer State Park extravaganzas. Mount Rushmore and a local winery were up first, donning our masks for the excursion.

We could say a lot here about the historical-political influence of this monument to white men in the middle of Lakota territory. Here’s my thought. I’m here to learn about history, to see the sites, to learn the context. Take that as you will, that’s my stance.

Pause for a week of work. Schedules were busy for both of us and evening sight seeing was tough. We did encounter a free wine night hosted by the campground, proceeding to infiltrate the party hall as masked bandits to swipe a gratis glass and exit post-haste.

The following Saturday, August 29, more adventures. You can tell our energy level was still quite high at this point to go off and explore. There’s something to be said for just waking up, lounging around, taking a day off, and chilling. But that will be for another day.

Today, we visit sites.

Crazy Horse Monument was first up on the day’s agenda.

What a unique history here. Begun decades ago by a founder who would never see his vision complete, the Crazy Horse Monument preserves, protects, and honors the culture of Native Americans. Quite the juxtaposition to have just seen Mount Rushmore.

Unique to Crazy Horse is that the initiative is entirely privately funded. In fact, the founders turned down government funding numerous times, concerned that government involvement would muddy the mission.

12-year-old Laura Beth was extremely proud to select the largest free rock she could from an overflowing pile of blasting site cast-offs proffered to tourists. I stored that double-fist sized hunk of granite in my nightstand for years. It might be in my garage now, tucked in a cardboard box.

Twenty years later, there is now another small rock from the Crazy Horse Memorial in my backpack, hitching a ride all the way back to North Carolina. Yes, I found it again, that same overflowing pile of free rocks.

You might wonder how much progress the sculptors have made in two decades? Much of the work appears to be in removing the rock near where the horse’s heady and body will go. The discipline and commitment to vision every day, every month, every year. I feel a little small next to that.

An hour’s drive brought us to Needles Highway, one of the more nerve-wracking pieces of pavement in the United States. Yes, that would be a one-late road cut through these nature-made stone towers. Honk a bit and see if anyone is in your path…the etiquette we learned.

But the beauty of this area is incredible, shifting with every curve in the road.

I pack picnic lunches for us on adventure days (and travel days, and normal days, and, well, I guess I make lunch a lot. COVID-safe and saves $$$). Stopping by a random pull-off to enjoy your turkey BLTs, apple, Pringles, and Coke Zero? Yes, please.

“How about over here?” I gestured the collapsible cooler in the general direction of a large rock.

Carolyn, already miffed that I had opted for boulders instead of a picnic table, mumbled something unintelligible and continued marching.

I unwrapped each carefully packed item, placing our mid-day meal on the relatively flat, if not very porous, granite (or some other mineral, I never did take geology).

Carolyn was non-plussed.

She whipped out her phone, triggered the flashlight, and inspected nearby crevices for “creatures”. I happily munched away at my sandwich.

We wrapped up the day’s excursion with the Wildlife Loop, on the (eyes-only) hunt for bison, bighorn sheep, and all manner of other furry creatures. I was ready to double-click the controller joysticks and enable eagle-eye a la Red Dead Redemption 2. Turns out a better indicator of wildlife is brake lights and lots of cars pulled off on the shoulder.