Mount Rushmore Memories
Valerie Fitzgerald 4TH daughter of Miles Fitzgerald

I first sat down to write this in mid-August, 2006. It was a very hot summer, which inspired me to write about a memory from another hot summer. When I was maybe 12 years old, my dad, Miles, took my sister Katie, my brother Dave and me on a trip through the Black Hills of South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore. I remember the sunny morning when we packed up our white ‘61 Chevy.

We prepared for our trip by filling a bottle with water, and picking up some snacks. A small cellophane bag of pink wintergreen lozenges was our favorite. One of us decided to improve our jug of plain water by adding a wintergreen lozenge to the jug. It seemed like a good idea right up until we took that first sip of pinkish water.

Mitchell, South Dakota was our first stop for the night. Of course the Corn Palace caught our attention. How could a building made entirely of corn not make a lasting impression? Because we got into town late, there were no rooms available at the kind of motel we would normally stay at. The only vacancy was at the Mitchell Hotel. Looking back, it seems to have been the kind of residential hotel that provided low-cost housing to people who had no other place to stay. There were some “characters” in the hotel, air conditioners that made noise without doing much cooling, and there were some very unusual bugs in Dave and Dad’s room.

The next day we drove across South Dakota. As I said, it was very hot that summer and, even with the car windows rolled all the way down, the hot breeze offered no relief. We drove through rolling hills. When we reached the top of one rise, we tried to guess the distance to the top of the next one. Dad estimated it at five miles and I remember being astounded that we could see five miles straight ahead without a curve in the road, a clump of trees, a river or lake to get in the way.

The Badlands provided a different geography, much more dramatic and varied. The landscape of colorful buttes and cliffs went on for miles, and antelope grazed in the distance. I think that was my favorite part of the trip.

It’s funny what you remember. I vaguely remember our destination, Mount Rushmore; the carved heads were so enormous compared to how they looked on TV. Katie and Dave tell me that we also went to Custer State Park and saw the Crazy Horse monument in its infancy, but I don’t remember that. What I remember more clearly are the tourist attractions that we saw along the way. We visited the Reptile Gardens and rode a giant turtle. Then there was the Cosmos. I couldn’t quite describe this place so I found their website, which promises, “No one stands straight! Balls roll uphill! You can even stand on the wall!”

The trip home went much more quickly than the trip out. We didn’t go on a lot of vacations like that, so it was something very special. We had a blast, but it was nice to get home. And we learned many important lessons: plain water is best; hotels are not always nicer than motels but they can be more memorable; and the journey, with its rising and falling hills and roadside attractions, really is as important as the destination.