May 23 2007
A Place to Go
In my fourth grade Social Studies class, our assignment was to choose a vacation destination and calculate the time and money required to make the trip.
My first step was to write a letter to the area’s Chamber of Commerce requesting information. I crafted a business letter under my teacher’s careful direction, sealed it inside an envelope, pressed on a freshly licked 15-cent stamp, and mailed it off with giddy anticipation.
I was thrilled when the bulging mailer arrived, chock full of information about a place so distant and distinctive that it seemed like a dream. There were full-color brochures featuring locales I had seen only in black-and-white library book pages. I collected the dollar figures for gas, food, and lodging. I carried the one, the two, and whatever else I needed to come up with a total.
I imagine how much different this would be for today’s fourth grade children. Although from top to bottom my methods now seem antiquated, I knew exactly how long it would take and how much it would cost to go there and back.
Twenty-six years later, I’ve never been.
But my dad has. Sorry sucker. I’m pretty sure his budget was considerably different from the one I prepared in 1979.
Just a few years ago, in fact, he brought back his own pictures. Somehow the main attraction looked smaller than I remembered it from the Chamber’s materials, but it still impressed me. The faces carved in the stony mountainside stared out stoically, majestically — everlasting granite likenesses of four men whose true histories have since made them seem much more human than god-like.
Regardless of my child mind’s mystical image of the men, I still have reasons to see the oversized countenances of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln.
Will Mount Rushmore amaze me as it would have the fourth-grade me? Maybe. For the same reasons? Probably a few. I will make it there one day, but I hope not in the same manner as Cary Grant’s Roger Thornhill in North by Northwest.
Of the 25 states I’ve visited (either accidentally or otherwise), South Dakota’s not one of them. One of these days, I’ll make it. I’ll set my eyes on those larger-than-life sculptures that still hold a special place in my mind.
I had that same feeling when I saw Niagra Falls. I thought it’d be this mile-high waterfall with a deafening noise.
What a disappointment when I saw it for real.
Rushmore is cool…but the drive through the Dakota Badlands is better in my opinion. Like you, I’m not sure what I was expecting when we set off for those stone faces during my junior high years…but they seemed very small and far away when we arrived. Maybe it was just my youthful inability to calculate the scale that I was looking at…but I seem to remember my Dad having similar feelings about it.
However, since most big landmarks are this way after being built up in the mind…I say go anyway. The drive is worth it and if nothing else you can then say you furfiled your childhood plan. And not many can say that (lacking the funds to become a cowboy astronaut and all ;)
I’ve been places where I’ve been disappointed, but only a few times. I was pleasantly surprised at the beauty of the drive from Hartford, CT to where Dave lives. I was fortunate to have been there once in the fall - wow! And Capetown, South Africa was beyond what I thought it would be. I wish I was there now.
Any mention of the Dakotas brings to mind the annual Sturgis motorcycle gathering. My stepdad is a Harley man, and he and my mother have driven down there twice to take it in. (Back when they were young, and in their 40s.) They took pictures of men riding around in nothing but leather chaps, and women wearing Daisy Duke shorts that would have made Daisy Duke blush. And then they realised they hadn’t put any film in the camera…
It’s very hard for reality to live up to the expectations born in childhood and fostered through several decades of wondering. Still, I imagine finally going would be satisfying.
And Dave, dude, maybe you just didn’t get close enough to the Falls. I’ve been there a few times, and man, that’s some impressive water!
Dave - Disappointed in Niagara Falls? I’d probably miss it while keeping an eye out for Clark Kent and Lois Lane.
Moksha - I’ve heard the Badlands are great. They were featured in all that Chamber of Commerce stuff, too.
Dad’s pictures showed me that the average person can’t get close enough to appreciate the size of the faces. A zoom lens, with all its 2-D trappings, cannot do it justice.
One of the most interesting things about Dad’s pictures of Rushmore was the huge rockpile left behind by all that chipping, scraping and (ignorance of the process possibly coming to light here) exploding of the granite.
Really, when you think about it, those guys got away with one of the biggest defacements ever. Cool.
Curt - A drive through fall colors. Nothing like it. Can’t say I’ve done the Capetown thing. You’re the first person I’ve “known” who wished he was in Capetown. Interesting.
Simon - I’ve heard Sturgis is wild. A co-worker at the Timex plant in Little Rock once showed us his pictures from the event, and we didn’t have to use our imaginations to see them. Women without tops riding down a gauntlet of wildly tatooed and pierced folks wearing all manner of leather. Memorable, if a bit bizarre.
I’ll have to share some of our Bikes, Blues, and BBQ experiences.
I’ve done the whole “camera without film” thing. I was on my in-laws’ boat on the Chesapeake Bay capturing amazing shots of a tall ship sailing past at what couldn’t have been more than 30 feet. I was taking on spray from the whitecapping water to get some of the most breathtaking shots I’ve ever seen.
In the car on the way back to their home, I noticed my camera’s exposure counter read “48.” I had a 36-exposure roll.
No, I didn’t. I had nothing. Nothing at all. Nooo!!! Khaaaaaaaan!
exploding –> blasting, to sound like you know what you’re talking about. Which is a far cry from actually knowing what you’re talking about, and some people make a living on it.
(That was definitely a Khan! moment.)
I think many of those “gotta see” tourist sites are probably overrated. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t want to see all of them as I was driving to a destination, but I’m not sure I would want to make them my destination. In fact, I think I’m like the movie “Vacation” when Clark(e) would stop at a famous landmark, stand there for about :30, and then hop back in the car and take off. “Cool…now let’s go DO something.” Again…back to the “stop and smell the roses gene” that you have, and I don’t.
I think finding unique things on your own during a nature hike are just as spectacular as standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon. But hey….that’s just me.
finding….is. I read my last paragraph after posting it, and it haunts me. I’m not that picky, but that one seemed to stand out for some reason.
One summer mom built up a trip she had planned for the family to the amazing Castalia Blue Hole. The brochure showed and told of this magnificent bottomless water filled hole found by a farmer in his field when he lost four horses and a wagon to in way back when.
Included in our vacation was a stop to the nearby Seneca Caverns, the amazing earthquake crack. (Both located in northern Ohio. We couldn’t wait to get there.
The Blue Hole ended up being a perfectly round hole filled with water and weeds. Bottomless? I’m not sure because you couldn’t see deeper than 2 feet because of the weeds.
Seneca Caverns was exactly as advertised. It was a giant crack. It was like trying to crawl into Goliath’s backside.
I’m sure South Dakota will be great though.
I hope when you go….it will be all that you have hoped it to be. I have never been either but would love to go.
I have noticed several folks have been posting newscasts from the past on Youtube. I saw one from a Memphis station in 1979!
The second story on that newscast was how gas prices were expected to reach and exceed ONE DOLLAR for a gallon of gas!
Now 28 years later, we have topped THREE DOLLARS! Whew!
So I’m waaaaaaay late in responding to this post (or even reading it, for that matter), but I say Rushmore would have to be impressive no matter what. My boss travels all the time, visiting clients across the country. Thrice (I said thrice!) since I have been in his employ, he has traveled to Rapid City, South Dakota, to meet with a client. And not once did he stop off the trail to take in the spectacle that is Mount Rushmore. He mentioned that he might have been able to see it from the highway on the way back to the airport, but he wasn’t sure, couldn’t recall, whatever.
Now in truth, he may just not care all that much about seeing it in person. But he may also be too damn busy (more likely) to take the time. IMO, sad!
Thanks for not booting me off your blogroll, by the way. I’m try to make a comeback. :-)
-Erica
I thought there were only three faces on Mount Rushmore? You know, General Zod, Ursa, and Non.
I’d really like to see it some day. Seeing with Google Earth just doesn’t do it for me.