south-dakota

Mount Rushmore

~ yellowlamplight ~ 1 Comment

Years ago, I spent a 4th of July in Lubbock, Texas. I’ve never forgotten it. I was with my brother and his family and we ended up on a football field in the middle of a huge crowd. Everywhere you looked there were families spread out on blankets. Little kids in red white and blue shirts with melted ice cream adding extra interest to their cute outfits. Coolers full of plastic bagged sandwiches and icy cans of coke. Moms wearing sunglasses and carrying on conversations while keeping each child on their radar. When any kid wandered too far the dads got an elbow in the ribs and they would chase them down dodging other dads doing the same thing. Eventually when the sun set and the fireworks started, I remember stealing a moment to look at all of the faces around me. Each turned up to the beautiful display above us. The lights catching on their features and making them beautiful too. When the song ‘What a Wonderful World’ started to play, I cried. It was the most American I had ever felt. Going to Mount Rushmore affected me the same way. There is something truly magic about standing in a crowd of people looking up at those craggy faces. In being one of them. You shuffle through the little museum and hear the stories about how they made it happen. The painstaking process. You look at the pictures and tell the person you’re with, “I just can’t believe they hung off the side of a mountain!” They answer, “I can’t believe the precision. They even added the glasses!” You both shake your heads and continue reading the placards and calling out facts to each other. Every once in a while, you make eye contact with a stranger and you both shake your heads in wonder. Later in the little dark theatre, you get a lump in your throat when you hear the entire thing was a nod to American exceptionalism. A love letter from a group of men who labored fourteen years to make it happen. They hooked themselves into belts and pulleys and detonated dynamite to create something for everyone who would come after them. For me. They gave me that sunny August afternoon with my husband. The one where we got to be proud Americans. Unabashedly proud. We stopped under the flag from each state we’ve lived in to take a picture. We went in the gift shop and bought magnets and red white and blue souvenirs for our grandsons. We took hundreds of pictures from every angle and we talked about how much we love America. We talked about it a lot. She is a big messy experiment that means everything. To us. To the men that created Mount Rushmore. To the crowd of people enraptured on that field in Lubbock, Texas all those years ago. To the world. I just have to remember that as I get another text message from a politician and try to survive these last 18 days until the election. Here’s hoping that whatever this election brings it continues us on the same path that Mount Rushmore has been illuminating for the last eighty-three years.

Wall Drug

~ yellowlamplight ~ 2 Comments

The zoo in Colorado Springs is my favorite. It’s bullt on the side of a mountain and the views are incredible. Albuquerque Zoo is a close second. There’s something about the air there and they used to have an orangutan that pretended to smoke cigarettes. He was funny. My sister, however, swears by San Diego’s zoo. She says there’s no competition and I believe her. She’s the zoo lover extraordinaire! Myself? I’m more a fan of a good people zoo. I love going to the mall and sitting in the food court and just watching folks. Y’all are funny. The skinny teenagers giggling behind their hands. The way too patient mama who might need to give her kid a little pat on the behind. The beleaguered dad sucking down an Orange Julius and questioning his life choices while his family shops. But nothing, and I mean nothing, prepared me for Wall Drug in Wall, South Dakota. Not even Vegas where I once saw a guy dressed up as Elvis wearing a wedding dress in a wheel chair. Take a minute to picture that. I’ll wait. Back to Wall Drug. That place was the mother lode of people watching. Mostly because there were hundreds, felt like thousands, of them crammed onto its’ property. Ever been there? It’s more than a little crazy and pure American. First of all, they sell everything you could imagine. Need neon dice that flash? They got ’em. A full barbecue meal. It’s there. Brontosaurus sculpture? You know it. They also have an entire boot store! A huge one. And, wouldn’t you know, in that crowded place in the middle of nowhere my husband was suddenly in the market for boots. Not a joke. My husband is a very thorough shopper. He has looked at me aghast many, many times in our long marriage because I tend to walk in a store and buy the first thing I like. This makes sense to me. I like it. It’s for sale. I’m good. Not him. He has to try it on and think about it and debate it–it’s a whole thing. To keep us married, I have learned to remove myself from those situations and find something else to do. Hence, I sat on a bench for almost an hour just watching people. Wow. I’ll say it again. Y’all are funny. Mr. Man with the big tummy who dropped ice cream on himself and got a chewing out from his wife I see you. All the people with dogs, the puppy says hello–again. Way too skinny lady with spangled back pockets and blue eye shadow debating the sparkly pink boots– you have been noted. Scary looking biker dude wearing no shirt and a leather vest with an even scarier skull looking thing on the back–I averted my eyes, but I totally saw you too. To be honest, you kinda intimidated me. You need to take it down a notch. Go have some ice cream or something. Ask big tummy guy where to get it. Mom with the leather purse suffering through your own version of hell in the gift shop while waiting for your four(!) kids to pick a souvenir I totally see you. Where on earth was your husband? Probably trying on boots with mine. Some people. I decided, that day, we should stop taking foreign tourists to places like the Statue of Liberty or the White House and instead drop them in the middle of South Dakota at Wall Drug. This is where they can really experience America. In fact, I think half the country was there the day I visited. It’s hard to find a square inch in that place not occupied by someone! Even the giant jackalope wearing a saddle is crawling with people looking for a photo op. And, by the way, you guys cough and sneeze and touch things a lot. And some of your coughs sound a little serious. Tall man in the plaid shirt I’m talking to you. Turns out there is a limit to my love of people watching and it centers around the fear of tuberculosis. So, when I had finished my 32 oz. weird tasting pineapple drink and there was still no sign of my husband, I went and told him politely it was time to go. Well, pretty politely. I did snap my fingers at him and the lady chewing out her husband for spilling his ice cream gave me a little nod of admiration. As we made our way through the throng of people trying to get to the front door and back to our car, I made sure to soak the moment in. To really notice all that Wall Drug is. I did this because I have no intention of ever going back. Been there, done that and yes, I bought a t-shirt–the very first one I saw. My husband, however, did not buy boots. Some people.