Getting Real With Shadra Bruce

Today we drove an hour outside of Gillette to see Devils Tower. It’s Devils, not Devil’s, because of a typo on the application form for designating the geologic formation as a national monument. It was something Dave had wanted to see, I’m sure in part because of Close Encounters (a movie I slept through). We did not pay the entrance fee or go in – while it is accessible to the disabled, we realized rather quickly that the view from the pull off was sufficient. It is spectacular, and since we did not plan to hike up the side of it and it was too early in the morning to visit the gift shop, there was no point in driving in.

We headed from there straight to Mount Rushmore, which was only two hours down the road. Mount Rushmore has changed (ok, the Presidents heads have not changed at all) a lot since I’ve been there. It’s completely wheelchair accessible with more parking and a larger gift shop. By going early in the day (10-ish) we avoided the larger crowds (the lady in the gift shop says it gets very crowded later in the afternoons during the peak season).

I had fond memories of seeing Mount Rushmore with my grandfather, who lived nearby in Hot Springs. But there’s just nothing quite like taking your kids to experience something from your childhood. Seeing it through their eyes made the experience so much more special. Given that my kids are geeks (scholars, Anika would correct me to say), they not only know the four presidents (Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Roosevelt) carved into the mountain, but were regaling us with facts as we explored the area.

We spent quite a while enjoying Mount Rushmore, but it was still early, so we took the kids on an hour-long drive to Hot Springs.

There’s a funny thing that happens when you’re a kid. The way you remember things isn’t exactly how they are in real life, and never includes all of the changes that have come since. I was so excited to share Hot Springs, South Dakota with my kids. I’d spent an enormous amount of time there as a child, visiting my grandpa (my mom’s dad) and spending time in the area. I have the best of memories of catching grasshoppers to use as bait while fishing in the lake nearby, of playing in the creek with my uncle, of hanging out in the basement while my dad and grandpa played pool, of holding my hands over my ears as they shot pop cans with grandpa’s guns, of eating deliciously cooked pheasant and quail that my grandpa had shot himself…

After driving for an hour, we arrived in a town that was most likely only still in existence because of the VA hospital there – a town that seemed so foreign and unfamiliar that I could only remember the grocery store (which at the time was a Piggly Wiggly but isn’t anymore) and the Dairy Queen across the street that my grandpa had taken me to. I couldn’t even remember how to find his house. I’m glad I took my kids there – my mom was born in Hot Springs (she was from Edgemont, but there was either no hospital there or not one that could handle a c-section) and my grandpa lived there and worked for the VA from the time he was a young man until a few years after he retired. The town, population 3,653 was much tinier than I’d remembered it. We had lunch at the Dairy Queen, shopped at the former Piggly Wiggly, and headed back to Keystone to check in to the chalet.

I’ve been planning this trip for over a year and saving for it just as long. In many places, we were tight with the budget – we ate food from grocery stores instead of restaurants, we crammed everything inside the van rather than use a cargo holder for the better gas mileage, and we stayed with friends a couple of times instead of at hotels, and we paid for a AAA membership to get the discounts for the hotel stays we did have.

But in some places (the Oregon coast by choice, Yellowstone by virtue of supply and demand) and Keystone, South Dakota because how could I resist we splurged a little on the stay.

Rather than stay in a chain hotel, I reserved a night at with Rushmore Chalets in the Washington Chalet – which promised free laundry and a view of Mount Rushmore from the deck. Being able to do laundry without pumping machines full of quarters was nice – and being able to stay in a place with a full kitchen (clean, too!) was a wonderful and restful change. While Mount Rushmore was off in the distance, we truly could see it from our deck, but more than that, we could see so many stars. It was a relaxing, perfect night and we’ve decided in the future that when we travel, we’re going to seek out these places that offer a true home away from home experience.