Rapid City, Black Hills, South Dakota

Picture the look on my face, when I stepped out of the camper to put my boots on and realized they were filled with water. It had rained overnight, but it was really the gusting winds that blew the water from our camper gutters into the plastic mat we store on the ground below...and filled up ALL the shoes with water. "Mom, your shoes have puddles in them!!"

I dumped them out, put some plastic grocery bags over my socks and put them on anyway. I really needed the morning walk. One of the most challenging things about homeschooling, being a mom, living in a camper and doing all of those at once is that there are precious few opportunities for space or solitude. It was not raining so much as the campground was engulfed in a cloud, so my feet ended up being the driest part of me. The morning walk was good and restorative, but the mismatch between the weather forecast we had read (75 and sunny) and the current conditions (55 and inside a cloud) put us into a funk of indecision that lasted all morning. We filled the time by arguing, yelling at the kids, and gorilla gluing pieces of our closet hardware back into place. The kids ran around, whined for snacks every 10 minutes, and kept disrupting the gorilla gluing operation.

Around noon, the cloud seemed like it was getting less wet. Marko really wanted to see Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse so we decided to just get in the car and drive up there. Maybe it would be too foggy to see them, but it was only a 30 minute drive. Maybe Max, who is in a perpetual phase of needing yet refusing a nap, would actually fall asleep. 

We headed out with few expectations, but friends, you are not going to believe it, the skies cleared as we drove up into the Black Hills. I'm talking it was suddenly a blue sky, sunny, warm, no clouds kind of day. That land is sacred to Lakota people and it felt like a prayer to drive up through these spiraling black rocks and aromatic pine forest. We did a quick stop at Mount Rushmore (it's smaller than I thought it would be, said Marko) and then headed over to the Crazy Horse Memorial. It costs $30 to drive in and there was a special hike taking place that day so it was very crowded. Nonetheless we found a parking spot near the entrance. Max did not take a nap in the car so I ended up taking him out to the deck behind the museum pretty immediately. (Grant me the serenity to survive this phase of his development). Laurel and Marko got scavenger hunt packets from the front desk and toured the museum with M.

Max only wanted to look at the coins tossed in the little artificial pond on the back deck. But soon a little girl came over to him, coaxing him to play with her. They were soon chasing each other around and giggling. It turned out that she was the daughter of the Lakota couple who were doing presentations at the Memorial, and she was as in need of a playmate at that moment as he was. She had her own jingle dress and took part in the presentation. Max sat down right in front of the stage to watch her. Her mom, Jessie Taken Alive Rencountre is Hunkpapa Lakota and grew up on the Standing Rock Reservation and now lives in Rapid City. She just published a children's book, works at a school, and also goes around sharing things about the Lakota culture. Her husband played a drum and sang during the presentation and shared a bit about his perspective on the historic and ongoing misunderstandings between Indigenous and European people. At the end, we all stood in a circle and participated in a friendship dance. When it was over, she gave Max an autographed copy of her book. 

It was so just exactly what we needed as a family. For me to see another mother's perspective on my child, whom I am seeing through a lens of frustration right now. To just let the kids have fun and play with other kids. To learn about another culture, not just the historical but also the contemporary aspects of that culture. And to do it all under a blue sky with the Black Hills surrounding us on every side, was very healing. Jessie talked about the jingle dresses being healing dresses and it really did feel like healing energy was flowing. 

The weather turned back to cloudy and rainy that evening. It's even colder now, but we had another great morning in Rapid City, visiting the library and randomly meeting a bunch of homeschoolers there. In the afternoon, we came back to the campground and met a German family who is finishing out a long tour of North America. They are basically following the route we just took out here, so I was able to hand over a bunch of brochures and maps and recommendations. We have to move on in order to get out of the path of winter weather, but am definitely looking forward to my next visit to South Dakota.