Road trips…

When you grow up in a farm family the art of vacationing is often elusive.

There are cattle to feed, there is wheat to cut, or corn to irrigate and that means not leaving home for more than 24 hours – or traveling more than 30 miles from the farm. If it rained more than three inches you were in for a treat. Mom and Dad would toss you in the car and you’d take off to somewhere with a zoo that was less than six hours away. If you were real lucky you might even get to stay in a hotel – with a pool!

I was pretty lucky growing up because I remember three big-time vacations that involved actual planning and saving money, and all four of us. We went to Colorado to see mountains. A trek east involved seeing Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Professional Football Hall of Fame – and the most stressful vacation. Dad hated the traffic, and Mom wanted to see one of the Great Lakes – and her navigation got us lost in the ghetto of Cleveland. I can specifically remember my sister asking why there were bars on all the windows. I can also remember my Mom telling Dad to stop running red lights, or we were going to get pulled over.

“Good, I hope I do get pulled over and then I’ll pay him to get me out of this sh*thole.”

We also got a short stint in Sea World of Ohio. Dad was ready to go home, “you can each pick one animal.” We did get some pretty cool whale hats.

We took a trip to South Dakota when were a little older, and it was probably the most relaxing and best vacation we’ve ever taken. We checked out the Black Hills on horseback, drove through the Badlands, and looked at Mount Rushmore. We even stayed in a cabin with no television. I know it’s a favorite of both Mom and Dad. It’s not every day a donkey sticks his head in your car window looking for slices of bread, or you barf behind actual “Dances with Wolves” movie props (that was me).

Other stops on our trip included two of the five kitschiest roadside attractions in America. For those of you who aren’t wordsmiths, Kitsch is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of a style or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. In other words, being called one of the kitschiest attractions means it is likely crap. Yet, we still bought souvenirs at Wall Drug and Mitchell Corn Palace. Hey, we try to do our part to help struggling economies.

Wall Drug is a Western-themed mall/amusement park near Mount Rushmore and the Badlands. I don’t remember the amusement park, but I do remember taking photos next to a cowboy sitting on a bench in a saloon, and it being dark when we were there. This is also the home of the jakalope and free ice water that 2.2 million people per year take in. The other weird stop we made was in Mitchell to see the corn palace. I want to say this was an accidental stop, but I’m pretty sure Mom probably planned around it. We are, after all, farmers – and what better way to celebrate commodities by visiting a huge building redecorated annually with 275,000 ears of colored corn, grains and grasses. I don’t remember what the theme was when we were there, but I do remember buying popcorn, and probably a plate (that’s another blog).

It didn’t matter if it was a day trip, or a long trip. All that mattered was making memories. Memories we can still laugh about, and Mom will never live down her Ohio navigation skills – or lack thereof.