Listing Through Life

We drove by Mount Rushmore on Tuesday evening on our way from the Badlands to Custer State Park and I took a couple photos from the road through our bug-splattered windshield. Roosevelt and Lincoln seem particularly chummy from this angle.

We decided we wanted to see it in the daytime and also watch the lighting ceremony at night — but we only wanted to go there once. Our solution, of course, was to drive the 17 or so miles from our lodge late in the afternoon and stick around. This was a good plan except that we picked the one day when it was cloudy. It even rained a little off and on. This made it a poor day for taking photos, but I soldiered on.

I left the Red Chair in the car while we scouted the place. This was stupid. We’d no sooner walked the half mile from the $11 parking garage to the overlook than I realized I’d better get my photo soon before it got too dark. I walked back while my wife wandered through the visitor center.

When I finally got back to the viewing area, I put the chair on the wall and looked for my best shot. A couple was standing nearby, waiting for the elevator to the lower level. The guy asked me what I was doing, but didn’t seem that interested when I told him. He told me he thought I was putting the chair on the wall so I could sit and watch the show.

As I walked back to the car to put the chair away, I tried several other shots, none of which turned out. For one, I put the chair in the middle of the main walkway and laid down on my stomach for a photo. I saw a couple guys looking at me, but didn’t think much of it. But then they began walking toward me rather deliberately. As I headed for the garage, they followed. I paused to look for one more shot and to find out what they were up to. One of the guys approached and asked me what I was doing with the chair. When I told him, he seemed disappointed too. From what he said, I got the impression he thought I was up to something that might make him famous.

I wandered back without the chair and toured the visitor center while my wife watched the film. We made a quick trip back to the restaurant for ice cream, then found seats in the arena and waited for the show. It was 42 degrees out, and raining. We were wearing light jackets. Several people made comments as they walked past, but we didn’t care. It had been a hot summer and two days earlier it had been near 100 in Wall. We enjoyed being cold for a change.

The show began at 9:00. A ranger came out on the stage and gave us a Presidential trivia quiz about the four men carved into the mountain. We then saw a video that made no impression on me whatsoever. The ranger, who was from Virginia, gave a talk on how wonderful Thomas Jefferson was, then had all the veterans in the audience come down to the stage. While she walked along the line asking each their name and branch of the armed forces, the lights came on and lit up the carving.

We sang the “Star Spangled Banner,” and then several of the veterans joined the ranger in a flag-lowering ceremony.

It was all supposed to be very moving, and it was in a way. But I couldn’t help reflecting that the government that mentioned God several times and “our Creator” once during the ceremony is very antagonistic about any mention of God in most other instances. And the government that had this moving ceremony honoring the men and women who fought for our freedoms just mandated that I have to buy health insurance. I could go on.

On our way back to the lodge, we had to take a narrow, winding road. The sky was overcast and the night was pitch black. Because the road was so twisting, our headlights only occasionally shone on the road in front of our car. I found myself hesitating to allow the lights a chance to catch up with us. Suddenly I saw something white flash up ahead. At the same time, my wife said, “What was that?”

I slowed to a near-stop and put on my high-beams. On one side of the car, a brown and white cow was standing just a few feet off the pavement. That’s what she saw. On my side of the car, a jet black cow with a white patch on its face was standing on the pavement in the oncoming lane. That’s what I saw. I’m not used to meeting free-range cows in the night. It was somewhat startling and I drove even slower the rest of the way.

We spent six nights at Sylvan Lake Lodge in Custer State Park. The lodge was nice — situated on a hill above the lake surrounded by towering rock formations, centrally located in the Black Hills. Our room, not so much. It was tiny, barely 12×12 with a small bed with a hard mattress. There was only one chair, and that one wasn’t very comfortable, so lounging in the room was unpleasant. About halfway through the week we “borrowed” a chair from the hallway lounge and that improved things a little bit, although it also made the room even more crowded. There was a cozy lobby with comfortable chairs and mounted animal heads and an artist-in-residence, but it doubled as the bar and was always packed with people drinking.

The view of Sylvan Lake from our room. The one afternoon that we spent any amount of time in the room, we had the window open. Somebody was playing Mozart’s “Rondo alla Turca” at full volume, which was a bit incongruous, but pleasant.

I took my first walk around the lake on Wednesday afternoon. It was overcast and a bit raw, but except that it made my photos dark, I didn’t care.

On Thursday morning, I wandered around by the lodge while waiting for friends to arrive (after driving all night from Chicago).  Later in the week, we discovered that the lodge was only a mile or so from the main rock formations along the Needles Highway. Many of the same sort of formation could be found around the lake. The concrete dam that formed the lake was wedged between two of these formations.

On Sunday morning, we strolled around the lake. It was a beautiful day, but somewhat crisp and with a sharp breeze. There was a wedding taking place, and the bride was freezing in her sleeveless dress. Moments after I took this photo, her father stood up and gave her his suit jacket to wear.

The wedding party had the reception, and stayed overnight, in the lodge. They were complaining about the cold and trying to get the staff to light a fire in the fireplace, but since the entire area was suffering from extreme drought, there was a strict no-fire policy.

The dam is visible in the next photo, a bit to the right of the yellow tree. There’s a narrow walkway with a railing on the top of it.

When it reaches that end of the lake, the path climbs the rocks, then dips down below the dam. The lake is reached again through this natural crack in the rocks.

On our way from Wind Cave to Custer to eat lunch at The Purple Pie Place, we drove past Stockade Lake.

The 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie had recognized the Plains Indians as the owners of the Black Hills, but an 1874 expedition led by George Armstrong Custer discovered gold. A few months later, a group of Iowans led by John Gordon sneaked into the area, built a fort somewhere near here and began looking for gold. Four months later, the 2nd Cavalry caught up to them and escorted them out of the region. They didn’t find much gold in their short stay, but that didn’t stop thousands of other prospectors from following in the next few years.

The fort was reconstructed in 1925, then totally re-reconstructed in 1941 by the CCC. After it fell into disrepair, it was re-re-reconstructed just a few years ago. There isn’t much to it — just a handful of empty huts in a log enclosure. We had it to ourselves.

I found out about The Purple Pie Place on roadfood.com and was looking forward to visiting for months before our vacation. We went for a late lunch on Wednesday, our first day in the Black Hills.

The front room is an ice-cream parlor. When we said we wanted a meal, we were ushered into a cozy back dining room.

I ordered a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, and it was amazing. For dessert, I had a slice of bumbleberry pie, made with strawberries, rhubarb, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries. The filling was very good, but the crust was mediocre.

For the record, we ate supper here with our friends on Thursday and Friday. I ordered a ham, cheese, and pastrami sandwich on the second visit and another grilled ham and cheese on the third. I also tried the peach and cherry pies. The sandwiches were all amazing — the pies were just good.