Musings from the Road...Continued

Driving from Fort Worth to Bismarck, ND and back in four days was quite an undertaking.  There were a few things that stand out, looking back:

Herreid, South Dakota.

We enter a gas station that also serves as the local pizza restaurant for the community.  I must lead a sheltered life, because I have never before seen a convenience store that carries an entire half aisle (of the five total in the store) of assorted ammunition.  There were bullets for quail, for deer, for any number of God’s little creatures.  As we selected some purchases NOT on that aisle—because the seventeen signs posted around the store made it clear bathroom privileges were reserved for serious customers only—we observed a true small-town encounter: guy walks in, grabs some candy, shows it to the gal at the counter and then just walks out.  The gas station has a tab for all the locals!  I suppose when you have only 357 people in your town (down from 600 in the last census because “we died” as a young girl in the store told us), you can do such things. 

Draper, South Dakota

In our quest for some good grub along the road, Melanie saw a sign for “The Busted Nut Bar Grill and Garage.”  It was a unanimous decision to try our luck here.  Over the next twenty minutes, we became friends with a waiter named “Bill or George…anything but Sue!” whose real name, I believe, is Jane.  We took on alter-egos for the evening—Melanie was renamed “Princess” and I became “Sally.”  When a local at the bar, Verne, suggested Sally wouldn’t be able to finish her meal—he clearrrrrrrrrrrrly did not know whom he was dealing with—people began making bets, and suddenly there was $6 on the line.  Obviously, I finished.  With great show-womanship, I might add.  I must have done a little too good a job of charming Verne, because his only commentary at the end was, “she’s my kinda woman!  She can EAT!”  I collected my prize money and posed for a few victory shots while we were presented with a box of free (and delicious) cupcakes for being so entertaining.  South Dakota, for the win!

The guy who put up $1, Julia: The Clean Plate Award Winner, and Verne (left to right)

Mount Rushmore

Finally getting to see Mount Rushmore was a wonderful experience.  What made our visit even more profound was viewing it among so many pilgrims— bikers with American flag bandanas, Mennonite girls whose glittery flip flops peeked out from the hem of their conservative dresses, and families who piled out of RVs wearing t-shirts from other stops along their summer vacation.

The Road Home

We belted songs from “Thoroughly Modern Mille” and “Hairspray” and “The Last Five Years” (if you don’t know this musical, you need to stop reading this immediately, go download it and listen to it a few hundred times until you have not only memorized every lyric but analyzed and re-analyzed every word in this masterpiece…then come back and continue reading) all the way home until we were hoarse.

Of course, “Wicked” was in there in healthy doses, too.  And when we returned to Texas at the end of our crazy road trip, Chelsea timed it perfectly so the epic key change/cymbal crash from “Defying Gravity” happened at the exact moment we crossed the state line back into Lone Star territory. 

Sigh.

And that’s how four girls drive 2,750 miles in four days to see four faces carved in the side of a mountain.