by Doreen Orion
It came down to my friend Sheryl’s “Wheels of Justice” (Tim’s last name—Justice, not Wheels) and the eventual winner, “Princess Lines,” by our friend Jane Ann, a woman who, although she had worked with Tim for years at the hospital, obviously knows his wife quite well. The prize? To christen the bus, of course. As Tim put it when he announced the winner to the crowd, “Christening is obviously a Christian activity and in trying to be sensitive to my wife’s Jewish heritage, I decided to be culturally aware and use Mogen David wine, or as we liked to call it when I was growing up, Mad Dog Twenty/Twenty.”
After a first unsuccessful attempt (oh, Lord, please not an omen), Jane Ann was able to break the bottle on the front bumper. As the fortified wine ate slowly into the cement floor, Manny stared forlornly at the spot just christened and sighed, “I’m gonna have to fix that Monday.”
Finally, we (OK, mainly Tim) were ready to take off for the year.
I shed many tears.
(At least I still had some left.)
Chapter Four
MOUNT POODLE
* * *
Headwater High
2 parts vodka
2 part Tuaca
2 parts lemonade
squeeze lemon
Mix ingredients in shaker. Sugar rim to delineate target. Plant feet firmly on ground, aim, and pour into glass with a high, arching, perfect stream. When you think you’ve finished, shake out every last drop. Feel immense relief. Don’t forget to put back lid.
* * *
We had already been on a whirlwind tour, driving across nine states during the three weeks of our meltdown cruise. Now, Friday the 13th (I wasn’t superstitious—yet) of August 2004, our year was to officially start. We had very few concrete plans, other than to spend Labor Day weekend with a friend of Tim’s in Minneapolis, head to the Northeast for fall colors, and then stay warm in the South for the winter. After that, we thought we would travel up the West Coast before spending the following summer in Alaska. But for now, we were embarking on our first “real” trip, the official start of our yearlong full-timing it in our Prevost.
Tim could tell that even the few weeks just spent at home had done nothing to dim the memories of our meltdown cruise. (Perhaps it was my recently developed—albeit no less unfortunate for being new—facial tic.) Then there was my sanguine response when he asked if, rather than hook the Jeep up at home, I could just follow him.
“To South Dakota? Sure.”
“No,” he dashed my hopes with a snort, “just to the gas station. It’ll be easier to hook up after we get diesel.”
In spite of my apprehension about moving again (or, perhaps due to what shrinks call “counterphobic behavior,” because of it), I launched into the pre-takeoff routine that had become automatic on our meltdown cruise. And although we’d never spoken about how to divvy up our respective roles, as usual, we didn’t have to: Tim checked the mechanical systems (if we had been at a campground, he would also have unhooked our power, water, and sewer lines), while I played flight attendant and ensured that all the overhead (and other) bins were in their stowed and locked positions, going through each of our three “cabins” and giving every door an authoritative tap. There were quite a few bins to check and I planned on talking to my union rep about overtime.
Two days before we left, Tim parked the bus in front of our house to give us a chance to pack it with all our clothes, food, outdoor furniture (lawn chairs, table), pet supplies and provisions, maintenance equipment for any possible breakdowns, computers (laptops, printer), linens, and, it seemed, every other of our worldly possessions that we could not possibly live without for a year. Thankfully, the bus had a lot of closet and storage space in the living areas, and there was even more underneath in the bays, although two of the three were taken up with the heating/cooling systems, fresh, gray, and black water tanks, and generator.
Upon entering the bus, my buddy seat was immediately to the left, custom-made double-wide, to accommodate both the bus butt I planned on growing (I intended for my husband to learn that living one’s dream could have its nightmarish aspects) as well as one or two cats sitting up front with me. Across the aisle was Tim’s driver seat and behind that, a coat closet. Above the windshield was storage for all the stereo/TV equipment, and just adjacent, folded up and hidden precariously (or so it seemed to me) in the ceiling over my seat, was our 42-inch flat-panel plasma TV. A coffee table that could extend into a dining table was behind the buddy seat, with a reclining sofa on the other side. Behind the sofa was a desk (which housed the satellite Internet system) and behind that, a breakfast bar, which delineated the start of the kitchen.
For two non-cooks, that kitchen (not even counting the Blue Bahia granite) was a slight bit of overkill: side-by-side refrigerator/freezer, dishwasher drawer, combination microwave convection oven, sink, pullout pantries, pullout cutting boards, wine rack, appliance garage, and HAL, the all-in-one washer-dryer unit. Further back, a stainless steel pocket door separated the kitchen from the bathroom, which included a toilet, the twelve-hundred-dollar over-the-counter (and over-the-top) glass sink whose faucet was mounted on a stainless steel tile backsplash, and, finally, a fairly large shower (to accommodate one human washing one standard poodle), also done in stainless steel tile.
Both the sink area and shower boasted matching inlaid strips of colorful glass in blues, greens, and mauves. (The bathroom was so striking, in fact, that when I first saw it, all I could do was exclaim “Oh my God!” over and over again. The tile guy was still there, finishing up his work. I learned only later that he was upset at my outburst because he hadn’t realized I was actually happy. What a poor, poor fellow, to not know what it means when a woman screams, “Oh my God!”) Another pocket door led to the bedroom, with its queen-size bed over storage drawers, cabinets above, second TV, bookcase, closet, and nightstands.
All in all, just the very bare bones of what a Princess needed to survive a year on the road. How all of this was made to fit comfortably in a 102-inch-wide, 40-foot-long space (as measured on the outside) was truly a testament to Vanture’s work.
In a fitting precursor to the paucity of planning we intended for the rest of the year, the choice of South Dakota as our first stop was dictated largely by my lifelong desire (why, I haven’t a clue) to see Mount Rushmore. We found, however, that the majesty of that mountain lies in stark contrast to the road leading up to it, which impressed solely due to its vast array of kitschy Americana (“World’s largest catfish!” “World’s largest tin family!” “51-foot Teddy Roosevelt!”). Although we were somewhat horrified at first (Reptile Gardens! National Presidential Wax Museum! Cosmos Mystery Area!), after a while, the constant bombardment of the absurd could not help but win us over, a sort of paean to freewheeling, audacious, good old American free enterprise. We finally succumbed to a mutual weakness for crazy rides that I hoped was not a portent of disaster for the whole bus thing (I could already envision my epithet: She Left the Driving to Him) when we joyfully flung ourselves down the two-thousand-foot President’s Alpine Slide upon whose parallel tracks it is absolutely forbidden to race.
Tim won.
Of course, no trip to this area could be considered complete without the obligatory put-your-head-in-a-poster-cutoutof-Mount-Rushmore-and-pretend-you’re-a-president that seems to be on every street corner. In our case, it was Tim—lifting all sixty pounds of poodle, who, as always, followed our lead without hesitation, sticking his trusting, furry neck through the hole that had been the head of our first president. I swear that dog could sense the significance of the occasion, for rather than his perpetual, openmouthed, tongue-trailing grin, he shut his muzzle, got a faraway look in his eyes, and managed to appear pensive just as I snapped a picture. Perhaps he was pondering the senseless waste of Washington chopping down a perfectly good tree to lift one’s leg on.
While Mount Rushmore itself did not disappoint, what we enjoyed most about our time in the land of “Great Faces, Great Places” was taking day t
rips in the Jeep. This started a pattern repeated throughout the year in which we’d pack a cooler with drinks, snacks, another bag with treats and water for the dog, toss it all (along with said dog himself) into the backseat and head off to explore.
Miles had always preferred riding in back, even when only one of us was in the car. We think it stemmed from his puppyhood when, for the first six months of his life, he belonged to a Boulder macrobiotic chiropractor who fed him brown rice. When the guy decided he wanted a “heartier” dog to take backcountry snow hiking with the two huskies he already owned, we jumped at the chance to snatch Miles from his bony little fingers. That very first day, Miles leapt into the back of our car (the huskies, being huskier, undoubtedly always won the front seat) and never looked back. As we absconded with our new son, feeling like we’d just orchestrated a daring rescue, I shouted at the fellow’s upright skeletal remains, “Your dogs are carnivores! Deal with it!”
It was also in South Dakota we discovered our TV was finally working (although still not terribly reliably). Normally, this would have been cause for celebration or, at the very least, watching the evening news shows, but Tim and I had gotten used to not having the tube on during dinnertime. We still had happy hour outside our rig, sitting on our lounge chairs and watching the sunset with Miles. Then we’d go in, turn on the stereo (which was now working just fine), and listen to music while we ate and talked. If one of “our” songs came on, we’d even get up and dance a little, space permitting. We liked this new tradition so well, in fact, that we made it permanent and never once turned the television on during dinnertime again.
It never occurred to me that South Dakota was part of the Old West. Even after living away from New York for a quarter century, I suppose I still viewed the country like that old New Yorker cartoon, with The City at the center of the universe and everywhere else, well…everywhere else. True, Colorado considers itself part of the West, but obviously its citizens haven’t looked at a map lately; one can’t get much more smack-dab in the middle of the country. And while there are several historic “Western” buildings sprinkled about, there seems to be just as much of a Southwest feel (something I understand even less, geographically speaking), with many homes sporting saltillo floors, mission tile roofs, and the inexplicably ubiquitous (and even more inexplicable that they exist in the first place) purple coyotes.
Tim, a native Nevadan, always considered himself a Westerner, not that I had ever seen much evidence of “the West” in Reno, either. Now, as we traveled throughout South Dakota, Tim explained that for him, “Western” didn’t necessarily mean how a place looked, or even where it was, but more how it felt. To be Western was to adhere to a “live and let live” attitude, to believe that an individual had to make it or fail on his or her own. Finally, it also meant possessing a fierce love of the out-of-doors. (No wonder I didn’t have a clue.)
I guess not being Western myself (and perhaps even more relevant, belonging to the Eastern mall-worshipping crowd), I had never considered “the West” to connote anything other than a certain landscape or architectural style.
So it was in South Dakota (which, technically, is even less west than Colorado, but OK, I’m trying to go with this whole state-of-mind thing) I finally understood what it felt like to be in a place that was Western. Funny that it didn’t feel foreign at all. It’s as if the ethos of the Old West is so quintessentially American that no matter where one is originally from (and even for a first/second-generation daughter like myself), it seems like a shared history. As corny as it sounds (maybe some of the fifty-one-foot Teddy Roosevelt was rubbing off on me—down, Teddy! Down!), it feels like coming home.
Thus, I got a thrill strolling through downtown Deadwood (about forty miles northwest of Rapid City), a former mining camp during the last, great gold rush in the continental U.S., and getting a taste of the Old West, especially when wandering into the saloon where Wild Bill Hickok was gunned down. He, perhaps, epitomized the “live and let live” attitude better than anyone (although it could be argued that in his case it was more “live and make die”).
Wild Bill learned his legendary shooting skills growing up on his father’s farm, a stop along the Underground Railroad in the 1840s. There, his natural ability with a gun proved useful in protecting escaping slaves. Later, working as a stagecoach driver, he killed a grizzly bear with a bowie knife, furthering his already growing reputation as a fearless, “wild” fighter.
As a town constable, he pioneered “posting”: tacking to a tree the names of men he planned to “shoot on sight” the next day. Most thus notified skedaddled out of town right quick. He was later a scout for the U.S. Army during the Civil War and then a U.S. marshal. Between jobs, he supported himself as a professional gambler, and a dispute over cards resulted in the first ever recorded quick draw. Hickok won. After losing positions as sheriff and marshal due to overzealous killings, he returned to his gambling life for good. But his luck couldn’t last: He was shot in the back of the head at a saloon in Deadwood at the age of thirty-nine while playing poker, after his preferred—and safer—seat in the corner was already taken. (His last cards, pairs of eights and aces, are now referred to as a “dead man’s hand.”) The assailant, seeking revenge about yet another poker-related slight, was later hanged.
Of course, tourism’s tentacles attempt to heighten any “authentic” experience anywhere, only serving to ultimately dilute it. (Here, taking the form of life-sized, albeit rather ragged dolls sitting at a poker table, representing Hickok et al. at the time of the murder.) Neither of us minded so much in South Dakota.
In Keystone, in fact, just a few miles from Mount Rushmore, we stopped to have lunch on the veranda of the historic Ruby House Restaurant. Although it was a lovely day and the food was quite good, the best part turned out to be listening to the barker next door entice passersby to the “cowboy comedy blah blah” show. Soon, he was joined by tough, authentic-looking, ten-gallon-hatted actors who shot blanks into the air, cracking their whips while occasionally accosting children with “I’m your new babysitter, kid.” It seemed that this old mining town’s latest inhabitants were carrying on the sense of humor established by their forebears: When gold was discovered here at the turn of the century, several miners named claims after their wives. One of the richest thus called his “The Holy Terror.”
Tim and I could certainly relate; he knew exactly what he’d name a mine, if he ever had one. Before we left, I programmed my cell phone with various ringtones, assigning unique ones to people in my contact list, so I’d know who was calling before I ever looked at the phone. Thus, one place I worked for (and didn’t particularly like) rang Darth Vader’s theme. A contractor friend was “Men at Work.” Tim was quite pleased with his, the first few notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (supposed to signify fate knocking on one’s door). Since he wasn’t interested in having ringtones on his phone, I only assigned one—for me. Whenever I called him, the familiar music chimed out and people would invariably smile.
“Isn’t that The Nutcracker?” they’d ask, sugarplum memories dancing in their heads.
“Yup,” Tim replied. “My wife: the Nutcracker.” Pretty darn good name for a mine, too.
Badlands National Park more than lived up to its name, its barren landscape whittled by millennia of winds and water into ser-rated peaks and canyons of sediment, sandstone, and volcanic ash. There are many hikes in the park which would appeal to anyone who enjoys surroundings that are largely treeless, grassless, and waterless. Perhaps it’s because my ancient ancestors wandered in the desert for forty years that I tend to avoid those vistas like the plague.
What I did enjoy was our visit to nearby Wall Drug Store. I wouldn’t be surprised if the local constabulary used ability to point in its direction (rather than to one’s own nose) as a sobriety check, for there are more signs indicating the way than there is bad land in Badlands. Wall Drug, in the town of Wall (taking its name from the Badlands wall—a narrow, sixty-mile-long spine of buttes
), started out in the early 1930s as a barely surviving pharmacy in a barely surviving town. After the proprietor’s wife got the inspired idea to put signs on the highway offering free ice water during the summer, travelers flocked to the place, buying ice cream and other supplies to last them until Yellowstone or the not yet completed Mount Rushmore.
Since then, although the free ice water tradition remains (there’s now also free coffee. That, plus the five-cent donuts, meant Tim was on overdrive by the time we left the store, making me thankful he was only driving the Jeep), much has been added, including statues of a gorilla, giant rabbit, jackalope, bison, and T. rex. Tim and I thought we’d just stop in for a quick bite of their famous buffalo burgers, but ended up spending a few hours reading the many old, laminated articles about the place on the walls of Wall, hung along with historic photographs and thousands of new ones: The store gives out free “Wall Drug” signs to anyone who asks and people have taken pictures of them in all sorts of far-flung places, from the Moscow airport to the South Pole. We also couldn’t help (along with hordes of visiting children) pretending to ride the various “animals,” although we resisted singing with the life-sized animated Cowboy Quartette. Wall is simply more pure Americana at its glorious, corny best.
At nine dollars per person, I was skeptical about touring the Crazy Horse Memorial. That much money to see yet another gargantuan mountain carving, this one not even finished? Besides, you can view the thing from the road. I still don’t know why we actually paid the admission and entered, but we were glad we did, because the monument itself isn’t even the half of it: The Crazy Horse Memorial is less about what will eventually become the largest sculpture in the world and more about one man’s single-minded determination and willingness to sacrifice his life for what even he acknowledged was a small step toward righting a wrong.
