A wedding invite between jobs and a new car took me past Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. Somehow I expected four old white guys to be more imposing on a uniquely American national monument.
Herr Cucachara proved its mettle, reliably and cheaply carrying me nearly 3,000 miles from 47 Pianos to Rock Springs, Wyoming, where David, Lois's youngest son, was tying the knot to Jan, a local gal.
Although honeymoon-less, I pulled over in Niagara Falls, bought a souvenir shot glass that I used to gargle mouthwash and a pamphlet describing Annie Edson Taylor, the first person to barrel over the Falls. I thought her exploits might serve as the basis of a feminist screenplay. Yep, I still was dreaming in those days. Solo travel gives you a lot of time for that.
It would take me another 34 years to get wet on the Maid of the Mist.
My route, plotted with Rand McNally, took me to the Wisconsin Dells, where I ignorantly slept through a tornado warning in the same little green tent I had pitched nearly a decade earlier in Maine and taken with me to Alaska, too. After navigating the amber-grain monotony of the Great Plains, the wind-and water-sculpted Badlands came as a relief.
I got to Mount Rushmore late in the day. The parking lot was nearly empty.
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln gazed out from the shadows. Only Lincoln's reputation remains unsullied four decades later. Father Time takes no prisoners.
I looked forward to seeing Barb as much as seeing the four Presidents. We took BJ to Flaming Gorge, Utah, a huge reservoir formed by damming the Green River.
I don't think I had become a regular swimmer yet, but I always loved the water.
Ken and Lois drove up from El Paso for the nuptials. The next time I saw Dad, we were on the other other side of the world, in Sydney, about to depart on our Australian road trip.
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| Lois (center, blue dress); David & Jan (to her right); Ken & Jeff (to her left); and Barb holding BJ |
