Road Trip to Deadwood, Part 1

In the 1978 comedy, Animal House, starring John Belushi, the men of Delta House find themselves stymied completely by Dean Wormer and his cohorts. They are about to be expelled from school and have their fraternity shut down. When some of the guys realize that there is really nothing that they can do about it, Otter and Boon know what needs to be done. “Road trip!” they announce.

Kathleen and I found ourselves in a similar situation in late September. We closed on our Nashville home on September 12 and drove up to River Falls where Ben and Amber were generous enough to allow us to stay with them and the grandkids until we closed on our new place on September 30.  We couldn’t start cleaning and painting, or even shopping for needed items until we actually had our furniture and were moved into the new place. Feeling a bit restless, and not wanting to overstay our welcome, we knew what we had to do: “Road trip!”

We had recently finished watching the old TV series called Deadwood on HBO. The show aired from 2004-2006, but has been played in reruns ever since then, building up something of a cult following. We resisted watching the show after seeing part of one episode in a hotel room years ago. Kathleen is no prude, but the profanity in the show was especially foul and seemed almost gratuitous, so she was turned off on watching it. She thought that the language was worse than at a Henderson-family reunion—and that’s pretty bad. We have loved long-form television series such as Sopranos, The Wire, and Game of Thrones, however, and eventually a teaching colleague of mine, Adam Wilsman, talked her into giving it another try. We were hooked from the first episode. We learned that the language was indeed excessive, so the show was not for everyone. Realistic profanity was used, though, because the creators were trying to duplicate the raw, uncivilized nature of a Western boom town in the 1870s. Once we got past the language, we found that the plotlines and characters were well-developed and intriguing, and the writing was first-rate and intelligent. In the second season (there were three all together), the writers seemed to make a conscious decision to include elements of Shakespearean writing in the scripts. From that point on, the style of the Bard was evident in each episode, complete with dialogue in iambic pentameter and soliloquies spoken to the severed head of a dead man (similar to the “Alas, poor Yorik” speech in Hamlet). Therefore, when we wanted a destination for our road trip, Kathleen said, “Let’s go to the real Deadwood.”

Deadwood was a mining boom-town that sprang up overnight in the mid-1870s. Gold was discovered on land previously granted to the Lakota tribe, white miners rushed in seeking their fortunes, Native Americans tried to protect their land, and the US Army was sent in to drive them out. It was an unfortunate, familiar story in Western history, and it led to Custer’s Last Stand in 1876, and the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890, both in the same region of SW South Dakota. Deadwood became a colorful town that attracted such Western celebrities as Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, and Wyatt Earp. Hickok was famously murdered there in 1876 while playing poker and holding the notorious “Dead Man’s Hand” of aces and eights.

As we drove over, we noticed some things I had never seen before on the bland, interstate highway system. As soon as we crossed over the Minnesota line into South Dakota, the speed-limit signs reflected the wide-open spaces of the Great Plains. You could legally drive 80 miles per hours in most places. Also, there were warning lights and railroad gates at each entrance ramp because the interstate is often closed during blizzards and heavy snow. Other than that, there was not much to see until we reached the Badlands National Park.  It left plenty of time watch the unchanging landscape and ponder the many famous South Dakotans who have left their mark on history since the area became a state. Let’s see, off the top of my head, there was Billy Mills, one of my boyhood heroes and Olympic 10,000 meter champion in 1964. Tom Brokaw from television. George McGovern, the last liberal to be nominated by a major party for president (in 1972; he lost badly to Nixon). Then there was . . . um . . . well. . . I guess that’s about it. Back to the unchanging landscape.

By the time we got to the Badlands, it was cool, overcast, and drizzling a bit. We were pleased to receive a senior discount—I still can’t get used to that idea—and bought a pass that allows us to enter any national park in the US for the next year. Kathleen paid no heed to the “Beware of Rattlesnakes” signs as she bravely forged a path from the parking lot to the inside the park. She is a true woman of the outdoors. When we reached a good vantage point, we scanned the bizarre landscape in all directions. Over millions of years, wind and water erosion have scoured the terrain, leaving reddish-tan structures of rock standing in all directions. It’s unlike any other place in the country. You could certainly understand why outlaws would choose this location as a place to hide from the law; there was little to differentiate one rock or hill or valley from another. Actually, it was beige, craggy rocks as far as the eye could see. “Look over there, some beige rocks! Hey! Some more beige rocks! My God, woman! Is that a big beige rock way out there?” We returned to the car and drove another twenty miles or so through the park and saw a lot more beige rocks. Perhaps we were just tired from a long day of driving. Perhaps the colors look more spectacular when the sun is out. The truth is, we realized, that we are simply not as affected by natural landscapes, especially deserts, as others might be. We tend to prefer historical sites and places where humans have left an imprint on the world.

We spent the night in Rapid City, SD. There was not much to see there except in the downtown area. On each of the corners, they had erected statues of the presidents. The first forty-one are included so far, through George HW Bush. They were each about five feet tall, which meant they were slightly smaller than life size. Except for James Madison, which was about the right height. I guess Rapid City’s proximity to Mt. Rushmore (about 20 miles away) is why they chose this unusual tribute to the presidents.

The next day brought glorious weather, with lots of sunshine and temperatures in the mid-seventies. On to Rushmore and Deadwood!