Am I An American?

Howdy Folks,

Well here I am at the Quality Inn in Rapid City - thanks to www.priceline.com and Mr. Howe - just as planned but not without some adventure!! We'll get to that in a minute - first a correction.

There is no doubt that memory is the second thing to go - in my second blog I discussed Yosemite - that of course was insane as it is quite about SW of me - I should have been talking about Yellowstone and Mt. Rushmore, etc. Somebody pass me the ginko!!

This AM I decided to spice up the trip by taking a backroad up to I-90 - took 14W out of Madison up I-90 at La Crosse (yes, I know, Ronchka's nick name!!) - it was 16F when I left at 0620 - quite a change from yesterday - oh yeah - NASA read my blog yesterday so check this out - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11745704/

Once on I-90 it was clear that the sharp drop in tempertaure occurred rapidly and while it was raining - I-90 was pack ice covered in several places with many cars and 18 wheelers in the ditch - this lasted from about Austin to Worthington - a little nerve wracking but the speed was still about 115km/hr.

The beauty of the drive was that it was a sunny day and the road was straight - driving through a small portion of the great plains.

The drive up to I-90 and over to about Austin was interesting because of the signs indicating a) a Lutheran church every 50 feet, b) Viking and German Ancestry and c) an Amish element as well. If you remember the chef on The Muppet Show and the way he talked - now substitute some English instead of gibberish and that is the way people annunciate in this region - think Fargo the movie.

Now the great plains remind me of two things - The Tragically Hip - the best thing to come out of Canada since Neil Young - at the hundredth meridian,where the great plains begin - you know that song right - and Grate Plains - and by that I mean things or people who think they are great but indeed are grating in their plain-ness.

I pride myself in all of my friends - they are smart - more importantly they all have a unique skill and they are never, never plain. I always enjoy their company and indeed am educated, enriched and elevated by it. I have no time for pretenders or posers - life is way too short!! Here's a toast to my friends.

By the way - speaking of toasting I ate tonight at The Firehouse Brewing Company right here in Rapid City - and that rhymes with 'B' and that stands for beer. Check it out at www.firehousebrewing.com - I give it a B- for effort.

The drive across Minnesota and South Dakota today was like a trip down memory lane - it's amazing how all of us have been affected and to some degree brainwashed by American television.

First in Austin - the Spam Hall of Fame. Spam of course has taken on a whole new meaning in our cyber-connected lives - but there is spam and then there is SPAM and it comes in a can with it's own key!! I remember ads on TV for this delicasy and I can remember my mother chopping up spam, mixing in mayo, adding some chopped celery and voila - a ham salad sandwich - remember the gel on the spam when it came out of that can, accompanied by strange sucking sounds!!!

Next I drove by the exit (Exit 350 picture above) for Laura Ingalls former homestead that she later spun into Little House on the Prairie that later became a huge television hit because of it's harking back to a much simpler time when people actually talked to one another face to face without e-mailing -why, I don't know.

Next were signs reminding me of Dances With Wolves and then I had a flash back to Walt Disney and his stories about explorers and loners who opened up the west - no mention of the French 'courreurs de bois' who actually lead these guys by the hand. Remember Tonka with Sal Mineo - that was out here, all those movies about the settling of the west and manifest destiny, all those movies about Geronimo and Crazy Horse (a great band). This is also A Man Called Horse country, How The West Was Won was filmed here, North By Northwest, Gunsmoke was filmed here as well as other nameless TV shows and movies we have all seen.

The reality is different then the movies (in most cases Dances With Wolves and Man Called Horse are pretty good) - read 'Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee' - the Americans didn't beat the natives with superior fire power (thunder sticks), it wasn't disease, it wasn't alcohol (firewater) - they broke their hearts - they broke every promise they ever made and then they killed all the buffalo for no other reason than they could.

There is a feeling 'out here' similar to New Mexico - a feeling of something that might approach mystical, something, while not divine, may be best described as sacred - it is a unique feeling associated with the plains and the foothills and I can't explain it - but I can feel it. I am not a religious person - but there is something here that makes that sort of connection. It may be the space - ranches are measured an 1000's of acres and neighbours are seen when they want to be seen - and space in the sense that the sky seems big - no trees, no large mountains or hills - largest horizon I have ever seen.

I know that on a clear night, if you lay down on the ground and stare up at the heavens you feel you are being lifted right off the face of the earth - it is scary, yet exhilirating.

You get this feeling even more as you cross the Missouri River (3rd picture above) because it is right there that the topograpy changes - all of a sudden you can see the beginning of the badlands.

(Segue - a lot or people think Bruce Springsteen's greatest album was Born To Run or Born In The USA - I beg to differ - I think it ws Draknes On The Edge of Town - I say this because this was an album where he expressed himself not just through lyrics and voice but through his guitar as well - the songs captured the desperation of blue collar america trying to manufacture meaning and purpose for lives that seemed to have none - my favorite song off that album is Badlands - check out the lyrics here - http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/bruce-springsteen/25054.html )

Then as you approach Rapid City you can see the foothills of the Black Hills. I don't know how to describe the feeling other than to say - come out here and let me know if you feel the same thing.

Lewis and Clark, led by their Indian guides and supported by their French Canadian work force made their way through here proving it could be done and paving the way for the expansion west - in a very real sense the USA we know today was made possible by events that took place in the crucible of this region.

If you haven't read it, try to get your hands on 'Undaunted Courage' by Stephen Ambrose - a fascinating book about Lewis and Clark, their expedition and it's context in the development of the USA as the country we know today.

Tomorrow will be a lighter travel day as I investigate Mt. Rushmore and make my way from there over to Billings, Montana - Big Sky Country - making sure to pay tribute to the white man's folly by giving a nod to the memory of General Custer - like Jack Kennedy, General Custer found out that when everything goes right for your enemies on one specific day, that day can be very bad indeed!!

In closing a thought brought on by the mystical nature of the country out here - a friend of mine has the motto 'Carpe Diem' and is fond of reminding me that happiness is a choice - no matter what your circumstances. I am never sure how to seize any given day but I think the happiness part is true - in my life time there are times when I have let things bother me and disturb me to the point that I was simply no fun to be around or with. I'd like to think that is happening to a lesser extent at the ripe old age of 55 - soon to be 56 (I hope!).

Choose to be happy - no matter what - pretty soon it is not a choice at all but a habit!!