is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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Light and its Opposite.
Light and its Opposite.
I don't know quite how to say what it is I ought to say right here. Evany and I are currently in a tiny cabin at Cedar Pass Lodge in the Badlands, South Dakota. It is the most beautiful place I have seen in my life. I started crying! And our little cabin is right up in it.
We are surrounded by the most beautiful, almost unearthly jagged outcroppings of rock, and they play with light and dark in ways that change constantly. We sat out on our little porch and watched the rock formations and the sky turn colors as the sun set, then we turned around and saw the sun setting. There were amazing pinks and oranges and reds and blues all over the place. Then we turned around and the moon was rising, and it was full and beautiful and spooky with the clouds. And right above us there was a sky getting dark with that intense lovely blue, soon to be full of stars. And then we turned around and there was a huge lightning show going on far far away, so we couldn't hear any thunder or feel any rain, but there it was, all across the sky, the most amazing display of lightning everywhere. We observed all this Zeus-magic while standing under utterly clear skies full of stars. And then behind us again was the moon, and so on. In fact I'm not quite sure how I got myself to come inside the cabin, except that I'm very tired.
Oh, and there are little wild bunnies hopping around. Supposedly there are also lots of rattlesnakes and things that can hurt you, but so far I haven't seen any of those, though I did almost pierce my foot through with a low-growing cactus. Apparently that is the most common cause of first-aid need in the area: dumb-ass people wearing thin-soled shoes and thinking they are safe when they are not.
This cabin we are staying in, it costs only $60 per night. And right outside our door and windows is the most amazing stock of beauty imaginable. And there is no one here. It is just us and some Germans and a family or two.
The Badlands and I! We are in Love! We will never break up! 2gether 4ever! I'm not even mad that Benicio Del Toro didn't show up for his film shoot.
(Parts of The Way of the Gun were shot here. That is a Good Movie. About which I wrote a long long article. You should see it. The movie, not the article. You should see the movie. Unless you are caused anxiety by plots that make you feel sympathy for characters whose fates may take a turn for the worse. Someone very dear to me has that kind of movie-viewing restriction, and there is nothing wrong with it. It just so happens that I love that kind of story. The story where you have to think twice or 20 times about who really is the outlaw and who the good guy.)
I want to stay here! And then I want to leave and then come back and stay here! How much undue diligence on my part will it take to get some of my people out to South Dakota?
You know what else we did today? Ha. We went to Mount Rushmore. That is the opposite of going to the Badlands. Mt Rushmore is one of those things that is less impressive in real life than in photo or myth-- the opposite of the Badlands which, even though they look amazing on film, you can't really do justice to without being here. Like a Van Gogh painting. Don't even look at a reproduction. Because you won't be seeing a Van Gogh painting.
So: Mount Rushmore. Oh, the humanity. The people we saw. The crap we gazed at in the gift shop. The size of the soft-serve ice cream cones (roughly corresponding to the size of most Americans). We briefly considered buying tshirts that said "America's Sculptural Marvel" across the chest for the comic value of it all, but the tshirts were a) very ugly and b) not tight enough to do the job (since they corresponded roughly to the size of the ice cream cones).
Oh, and the flyer they handed us when we paid for parking (my yearlong National Parks pass did not cover that cost for reasons that make me annoyed!) calls Mount Rushmore "the shrine of democracy." Evany said, "Wait. Doesn't that mean democracy is dead?" And here she is, trying to hold up the burden of our freedom, which, as you know, doesn't come for free.
We also saw the part of the Crazy Horse monument that is done so far (his head). And we saw a lot of flat open space in Wyoming, Nebraska and South Dakota. We wish we would have gone to the Wind Cave instead of Mount Rushmore. But since this won't be my only time visiting the Black Hills, I guess I can do that next time. We had to get on the road because Cedar Pass closes by 9pm and we didn't want to lose our cabin. Plus we wanted to be here by sunset to see it happen. And it was worth it!
So Mount Rushmore is the opposite of the Badlands in about every way imaginable, from the fact of its being man-made to the tourist-trappy sadness and utter safety. In addition, Casper, where we began our day, shares its name with a friendly ghost, but it feels like a dark unfriendly place. The Badlands' name speaks for itself. But it offers so much more light! (Even though you could easily die here if you took the wrong hike.) Today has been a play of opposites.
In the car today Evany was wondering what place on earth might have the best karma, in terms of there being the least amount of violence done there. Then we talked about the difference between restitution for past harms and reparations for past harms. Then we talked about all the sites we were passing that could only be remembered for injustice to Native Americans. And about those that should be remembered for that but instead are remembered for other things. Then we talked about American slavery. It was dark cloud time in the car for much of the day.
Also: the stereo is broken! Or rather it works, but the driver's side front speaker is raspy rumbly most of the time, until you go over just the right bump, and then it works for a while, until the next bump, or until Ian MacKaye yells something really loud. During Evany's nap today I set the Ipod and Itrip to Fugazi: all songs, which meant 130 songs or something, so I wouldn't have to try to select another album EVER until she woke up. I am very fond of Ian MacKaye but his vocal fervor more than once made my raspy rumbly speaker slip back into its ill-wrought ways.
It's funny. My dad offered to buy me the cute traveling speakers that go with the Ipod so I could have an easily transportable stereo for my Amherst time, and I said "yes please thank you but let's ship it to Amherst." I'm dumb.
We'll either go to a car stereo store or buy a cheap boombox at the next WalMart we see (when we next must face a large interstate instead of a lovely 2-lane Hwy). So far the musical limitation has been fine, but we'll need more entertainment by the time we hit Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Even though by then there will be corn. (Comic relief for you Midwesterners: Today Evany said, no joking at all, "Am I ever going to get any corn on this trip?!" She wants to eat some corn. I laughed long and hard and said: Just. You. Wait.)
Stats:
Casper, Wyoming to Badlands, SD (Elevation: 2500; Population: irrelevant.)
Miles: 390
Lodging: $60!
11:50 p.m. - August 30, 2004
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