riding in cars with boys
Riding in Cars With Boys
Don't worry. I'm not talking about the movie here. I just got back from a little trip I took with Ben. We went to visit his sister in South Dakota.
Part One: Air Force One
After quite a boring drive through Wyoming, we arrived in Rapid City, SD, where Ben's sister lives. Her husband is in the Air Force, and they live on an Air Force base. It was quite an interesting experience, spending a weekend on an Air Force base. We arrive, and Mollie (Ben's sister) is still at work, but we can't get on base without her. So we sit in this quaint little coffee shop conveniently located outside the base. Mollie arrives, and we have to go through this whole ordeal in order to get on the base. Fortunately, they stopped short of the cavity search. Mollie had to stop by the "Commissary" (or, in civilian's terms, the grocery store). As we get out of the grocery store, it happens to be exactly 5 p.m. Mollie stops right outside the doors. Ben and I both assumed that it was her trying to make sure she had everything and everyone (we had a couple bags of groceries, along with her kids, Peter who is 3, and Brayden (sp?) who is 1). But she turns to us and tells us to be quiet for the National Anthem (do you capitalize that?). Turns out the base plays the national anthem everyday at 5 p.m., or, I suppose, 1700 hours. Everyone stops what they're doing, and faces a general direction that the flags are in. Literally stops everything they're doing. People stopped walking in the middle of the grocery store parking lot, put their groceries down, and turned to the invisible flags. After it stopped, I turned to Ben and whispered, "Play ball". I think Mollie overheard and didn't really like the joke. The rest of the afternoon was pretty chill, we just hung out at Mollie's house, ate dinner, played with the kids a little bit. Ben and I were not staying with her, however. We were staying at a hotel on the base. We get there to check in, and even though minutes before Mollie said the reservation was under her name, Ben checks in with his name. Of course he's not in the computer, so they're asking him several questions. When they get to the question of his rank, he sort of stops and stammers. I could tell he was trying to figure out what to say (he later told me he wanted to say civilian), when he said "I'm just visiting my sister." So she asks him his sister's rank, to which he replies, "Spouse?" She finally asks her husband's rank, and I turn to the girl checking us in, and said, "The reservation is probably under Grant." Ben turned so red, he was so embarrased. It was pretty funny...but maybe you just had to be there. I'm not sure. The hotel room was really nice though...
Part Two: Dead Presidents & Dances With Wolves
Rapid City is very close to Mt. Rushmore. Well, the closest city to Mt. Rushmore. So, we figured that since I've never been there, and we were in Rapid City and there's nothing else to do, we would go to Mt. Rushmore. It was pretty cool. But it was one of those things where you go there, take some pictures, and leave. There isn't really much else to do. Which is precisely what we did.
After Mt. Rushmore, we drove around. There's this park nearby, called Custer State Park, which is supposed to have a lot of bison running around it. I figured since bison and buffaloes were similar, and my school mascot is the buffalo, we should go and see some bison. Plus, I've never seen wild bison before, and it would have been pretty cool. Well, it turned into about an hour and a half of driving, in which the wildest animals we saw were some donkeys (they actually were wild donkeys), but no bison. It wasn't a total loss though, because it was gorgeous scenery, and we both kept talking about how great of a place that would be to go camping. He still felt pretty bad about not seeing the bison, but it happens.
On the way back, we stopped by this really cool store in downtown Rapid City, called Prairie Edge. It isn't really a store that you would shop at unless you really liked Native American paraphernalia, but it was almost more like an art gallery. They had a lot of artwork, be it photography, paintings, or simply ceremonial decorations. It was really cool to stop in and see everything.
We went back to the hotel to relax/watch basketball for a little bit (I'm so glad I found a guy that can put up with my March Madness addiction). Mollie had gotten a babysitter for the evening and took us to Deadwood. It's a little city in the Black Hills. It has some Old West history to it, including something about Calamity Jane. It's also the place where Wild Bill Hickok was killed. Kevin Costner even has a casino there, which is filled with articles from his movies, along with all of his movies. Dances With Wolves was filmed in the area of Deadwood, which explains the connection. Now it's basically a tourist trap. It's an Old Western town, with "saloons", prime rib and crab weekend buffets, and lots of gambling. Part of the reason that Mollie took us there (aside from it being her first night out without the kids in three weeks), was because she had two free dinners at one of the hotels/restaurants/casinos. It wasn't the best dinner I've ever had, but it was free. So we went downtown, which was actually really cute, into one of the casinos. Mollie and Ben both played slots, and lost all their money. After Las Vegas last year, I learned that slots are bad. I also learned to play Blackjack at the time. I went straight to the Blackjack table, and got $20 in chips. I left with $50 in chips. I could have won more/lost some/broke even, except Ben and Mollie were both done with the slots, and looked kind of like they wanted to leave, so I decided to cash out. It was the first time I'd ever actually quit while I was ahead, and it was pretty cool.
Part Three: Road Trip
Most people are probably asking, "How did two six hour car trips, plus pretty much spending three nights and three days together (he came down Thursday night and stayed over to take an hour and a half off his drive on Friday) fare for this budding relationship?" Actually, quite well. We got along the entire time, and never really had any problems with each other. We got to talk about a lot of different things, probably some stuff we wouldn't have talked about if we hadn't been stuck in a car with each other for 6 1/2 hours. But it's really comforting knowing that I can say whatever I want to him. I don't need to feel reserved, or hold anything back. It's a wonderful feeling; I've never felt that way before. We even joked about it when we had about an hour or so left of the drive today. But shortly after that (since he jinxed it), we were both getting really tired, and kind of cranky, but nothing in a bad sense. It actually worked pretty well. Like I said at some point on the drive today, "I suppose it's good to find out how well we get along sooner rather than later."
The drive to South Dakota is quite boring. It essentially consists of Wyoming, which is pretty desolate. We saw a lot of cowboys, a lot of pick up trucks, and even more cowboys driving pick up trucks. In fact we passed by a Ford dealership that didn't have any other cars besides pick up trucks. Our favorite stop was in a town called Manville, pop. 97. We just liked the name and made fun of it for the rest of the trip. On the way back, we discovered a town in Wyoming called Lost Springs, pop. 1. We thought a city with a population of 1 was pretty cool. All in all, it was mostly a back roads trip, since there aren't really any direct interstate routes.
In short, the trip as a whole was a lot of fun, and I'm really glad I was given the opportunity to go.