The Last Leg

Full disclosure: I'm sitting on an Amtrak train headed to Rhode Island after having been home for a full day...it feels pretty weird. But I'll get to all that stuff later because, per usual, I have to squeeze a lot of experiences into this post:

Mount Rushmore/Pine Ridge/Badlands

We woke up in Rapid City, SD on the morning of the 27th and quickly prepared ourselves for one of our longest, most grueling days. First up, we drove half an hour to Mt. Rushmore National Monument. Skyler and I both had very negative feelings about the site. Everything about the monument, from idea to execution to legacy, is very flawed and borderline disgraceful. First and foremost, the Black Hills of South Dakota--the site's location--is sacred land for the Oglala Lakota tribe who have inhabited it for thousands of years. When I say sacred land, here's what I mean: the Black Hills are the center of the Lakota's spiritual universe. It is where they believe the Great Spirit gave birth to the human race. The land belonged to the Lakota tribe, even after Anglo-Americans had expanded westward. The US government had signed multiple treaties designating the Black Hills as Indian land, but those treaties and countless others, were shamelessly broken by our expansionist government.

Here's one American's take on the land grab at the time:

I know of no other instance in history where a great nation has so shamefully violated its oath. Our country must forever bear the disgrace and suffer the retribution of its wrongdoing. Our children's children will tell the sad story in hushed tones, and wonder how their fathers dared so to trample on justice and trifle with God.

—Henry Benjamin Whipple, chairman of Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), on the taking of the Black Hills; statements made in official BIA report

But the fundamental theft that gave birth to Rushmore is only the preface to its much more deplorable existence. In the early 20th century, a South Dakotan historian proposed sculpting a massive series of monuments into the Black Hills in an attempt to attract tourists into the state, which certainly needed the economic boost at the time. Gutzon Borglum, a mainstay in Washington DC who often sculpted Presidents, Senators and Congressmen alike, was the first to make the journey to SD to scope out the site. Soon after Borglum's arrival, the monument' purpose drastically shifted. It was no longer about the state of South Dakota, future tourism, or even the legacies of the men it seeks to honor--the monument became entirely about Borglum.

I'll leave out the details, but this guy was comically egomaniacal. He was a control-freak, hyper-ambitious and prone to call FDR when local South Dakotans were objecting to his way of doing things (it's what toddlers do when they have a fight with their brothers: they run to mommy or daddy). Most alarming was Borglum's strange obsession with immortalizing the four Presidents. His goal was to create a monument that would last for all eternity, one that would serve as an unending reminder of the greatness of our nation and its forefathers for all future generations of human beings. He wrote romantically that this enormous sculpture would stand for "10,000 years," symbolizing the nation's ideals and its glory.

Does this sound incredibly insecure to anyone else, or am I taking crazy pills over here? To me, this is American exceptionalism at its worst. This is where the perpetual 'city on a hill' mentality really turns ugly, contradictory and comically pathetic. If that monument stands as a symbol of my country's ideals, then I must concede that I am ashamed to be a citizen of this country. WE STOLE THE LAND. Beautiful land, worthy of humble inhabitants, which it once had. In a campaign of virulent, aggressive genocide, we took this land and destroyed its beauty by sandblasting the face of four white men into the mountainside. And most depressingly, it is inherently inauthentic. It's nothing more than a fabricated pilgrimage site of misguided American patriotism.

Needless to say, seeing Rushmore was a tough way to start the day. Skyler and I spent some time in the museum (which unsurprisingly presented a skewed view of its history) and then we were on our way.

Our day was an intentional juxtaposition. We drove from Rushmore to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, one of the largest reservations in the country and also one of the most destitute. We bumped along the BIA Highways (Bureau of Indian Affairs) for two hours until we finally arrived at our first destination: Bette's Kitchen. The name of the site is self-explanatory, although perhaps a better description would simply be "Bette's Home." Here, a kind elderly woman named Bette has served food to her neighbors and outside visitors for over 15 years. It can't be described as a restaurant; quite frankly, there really are no restaurants on the reservation. When she began the business, she welcomed people into her small home, told them what she had in her fridge and what she could cook them. Over the years, she began receiving more customers and she formed a regular menu. But even after instituting a menu, Bette's Kitchen doesn't look any more like a restaurant.

Bette is the great-granddaughter of Black Elk, a very important member of the Lakota community. As one of the few survivors of the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890, Black Elk provided the only documented history of the events. His oral testimony is cited in Dee Brown's "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," and is the subject of "Black Elk Speaks." Old photos of Black Elk, along with other ancestors and descendants, cover the walls of Bette's home. The walls as well as the home itself reveal how important family is to Bette. Children, grand-children and even one great-grandchild wandered in and out of the house as we ate (Skyler had a grilled cheese and I had a BLT). We and one Native American family were the last customers of the day--she's only open for lunch.

Bette was busy, but very nice nonetheless. While we didn't have a long conversation, her home and what fills its spoke very well for her life and her community. Before we left, Bette had us sign our names in an enormous guestbook which revealed that hundreds of folks from all across the country had ventured out to eat in her home. It only dated back to 2010 which means hundreds if not thousands of others had visited before she began keeping the record.

After Bette's we took a short drive to Wounded Knee which is a very small town within the reservation. It consists of a few stores, a church, a mass grave site and cemetery, and an open pasture--the site of the 1890 massacre. We arrived at the open pasture, which was marked by a large sign that detailed the history of the killings. Eventually, we made our way down to a small, make-shift visitors information stand where two residents of the reservation provided a thorough history of the events, aided with old photos and newspaper excerpts.

After a few questions, they were no longer giving their standard script; instead, they were sharing personal anecdotes and opinions with us. It was particularly cool to hear one woman's experiences during the American Indian Movement's occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973. They also expressed a genuine and warranted mistrust of the US government, citing concern over new government plans to build a grocery store in the town which they believe could be a pit-stop for truckers headed to the future Keystone Pipeline. They referred to the project as a "third Wounded Knee" or a third attempt at exterminating the Lakota tribe. While their fears seem irrational from our perspective, they must be understood in a specific context. Given the traumatizing relationship that the Lakota have endured and continue to endure with the US government, those fears are completely valid and legitimate.

When we were with Todd Wilkinson in Bozeman, MT, he explained to us that many residents on the reservation were "sick and tired" of having journalists come onto their reservation only to report on the domestic violence, alcoholism, gambling and unemployment. He believes that the resilience of these communities is too often overlooked by outsiders. Interestingly enough, the woman that spoke to us at Wounded Knee shared similar feelings. She was open about her community's experience with alcoholism, drug abuse and violence. But she declared with pride that, "this was a good year" for her family and for Pine Ridge. She cited various examples of projects and events that had taken place, and then told us about her grandson who was flying to Phoenix, AZ to play in the annual Native American Basketball Showcase for the top Native American high school basketball players in the country. Most powerfully, she made it clear that community's fundamental spiritual and cultural values continue to thrive despite years of genocide and forced assimilation. "We are poor but we are rich in heritage," she explained. It was one of the final things she said to us before we parted ways.

After a 30-40 minute conversation with these two very nice and helpful folks, I bought a dreamcatcher and then Skyler and I headed up to the mass grave site on top of the hill. The slope also happens to be the site of the climactic standoff of the 1973 occupation in which a few people were shot and killed. Today, there is a marked-off area containing the mass grave site which is surrounded by graves of various community members. Skyler and I were both surprised to see how many veterans were buried in the cemetery. Later that day, we found out that Native Americans--more than any other ethnicity in this country--have the highest percentage of combat military service within their population. That's another sacrifice that quite clearly has not been repaid or rewarded.

From Wounded Knee, we headed north to the White River Visitor Center which is the only visitor center for the South Unit of the Badlands National Park. Some context: the Badlands National Park is split into two units, North and South. The North Unit is pretty much your typical National Park. It has a nice paved, scenic road that runs through the park with pull offs for good views. It has a big visitors center and multiple campsites staffed with rangers. In terms of resources, it felt like Arches or Zion.

But the South Unit is a much different place. It's doesn't feel very much like a National Park and that's because it sort of isn't. The South Unit of the Badlands sits in Pine Ridge Reservation; and although it's protected National Park land, it's held in cooperation with the Oglala Lakota. There are no rangers staffed in the South Unit full time, the tribe runs the only campsite, and there are no roads leading directly to trails in the park. The land itself is also very sacred and has significant cultural importance to the tribe. "The Stronghold" which is a holy site smack dab in the middle of the South Unit, has been inhabited and visited by the Lakota for over 10,000 years. Technically speaking, that land belongs to the United States government. Unsurprisingly, there is an ongoing debate/movement within the tribe to formally reclaim the land from the United States government, which would make it tribal land and not a National Park. We'll see what happens.

As for our visit, the visitors center provided some much needed history of the Lakotas. It was a small but thorough exhibit on language, custom, history and relations with the US. One specific portion had a booklet of the major treaties that were violated by the US government's illegal land settlement. The Treaty of Laramie, which reserved the Black Hills as Lakota land, ultimately resulted in a 1980 Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that the US government had illegally seized the Black Hills and therefore owed the Lakota Indians $106 million. The problem was that the Oglala Lakota didn't want the money, they wanted the land back. They appealed to the Supreme Court for 7,300,000 acres of the Black Hills instead, but the court denied them. To give you a sense of how egregious that decision was, the United Nations declared that the US government's failure to return the land in fact violated international law!

The museum was exactly what we had wanted all day and we soaked it up--we stayed until the two employees closed it up for the night.

After the South Unit we began our drive north to get a brief glimpse of the North Badlands and then head east to Chicago. The Badlands is a spectacular site worthy of the National Park designation (for what it's worth). The curvy road took us deep into the millions-year-old rock structures that had been carved by the Wind River. The Badlands used to be separated from the Rocky Mountains by the Western Interior Seaway (which is said to have split North America into two separate land masses millions of years ago), so the area is rife with fossils of extinct animal species. Learning about this science, even just briefly, was really cool.

We explored some of the pull-offs just as a major thunderstorm roared in the distance. Here's the only photo I snapped during that day:

It was a beautiful storm of biblical proportions. It raged in the distance and covered the sky in darkness, except for one small oval which opened up perfectly to reveal the last remnants of the sunset. We explored some of the rock structures and watched in amazement as a herd of mountain goats hopped up and down the peaks in order to escape the rain.

Midnight Drive/Wrigley Field/Chicago

After our unexpectedly long and awesome drive through the Badlands, we hit I-90--the road that would take us nearly 700 miles to Chicago--at 9 PM. Skyler was an absolute baller. He drove from 9 PM until 5:30 AM. We may be crazy, but we're not stupid (I like to think). Skyler was very smart about his late night leg. He called a good friend from college and talked to her for 3 hours, which killed almost half of his driving time. Meanwhile, I got some quality reading done before passing out around 2:30 AM. When I woke up at 5:30 AM, we had arrived at a Minnesota McDonald's. I was groggy, grumpy and just not ready to drive. A few cups of iced coffee changed that and before I knew it, I was wired and ready to roll. I drove the rest of the way to a motel just outside of Chicago. We arrived there at 1:30 PM. In total, it was 16.5 hours of driving pretty much straight through the night and morning.

Let the record show, however, that we are not clinically insane. We did have a (good) reason for doing such a crazy drive: before the trip, my Dad asked me if Skyler and I had planned to see any baseball games throughout the journey. When I told him that we had better things to do than see America's past time, he was visibly offended (he's a big baseball fan). On the spot, he declared that if Skyler and I were at any major league ballpark in the US, he would buy us two tickets to see a game. At the time I didn't think anything of it. I do enjoy a good ballgame, but I truly did not expect that we would ever want to see a baseball game over another cultural activity that we could do in a city. Lo and behold, I was wrong. Skyler and I realized that we had an all-expenses paid opportunity to see the legendary Wrigley Field. So we called my Dad, who was true to his word, and got ourselves some tickets as a birthday present (my birthday was on June 29th).

The 29th was on a Sunday. So just like any other Sunday, the Cubs would be playing a nice day game under a beautiful, late-June sun. Sounds nice right? The only problem was that Cubs inconceivably decided to take this Sunday off--the first time the franchise has done so in 82 years. Thus, Saturday evening was our only option if we wanted to get a glimpse of Wrigley. 

Against all odds, neither of us fell asleep and we made it safe and sound. We hung out at our hotel for a few hours, napped/watched World Cup soccer, and then drove downtown to Wrigleyville. We saw the Cubs get burned by the Nationals, final score 7-2. There was a short, but intense storm that came through in the 4th inning so we had a brief rain delay. But all in all it was a beautiful night for a ballgame and what a park it is! Here are some photos that we snapped:

Rain delay at Wrigley

Nice view from the upper deck as the workers clear the field for play.

The Dynamic Duo out in front of the famous centerfield scoreboard.

The majestical powers of America's pastime leave Skyler speechless as he looks on romantically at one of the country's oldest franchises....just kidding, he was just really tired.

Starlin Castro, the only glimmer of hope for the Cubs, winds up late in the game.

Outside Wrigley in front of another famous park landmark.

I had some brief, but informative conversations with some of the park attendees--most of them were retired senior citizens who love baseball enough to watch a game almost every day and night of the summer. One man told me the entire history of the park's renovations and explained just how small the original park really was (it didn't even have its second deck until 1927).

After the 8th inning, Skyler and I snuck our way down into the home plate section. We were about 15 rows back from the plate, a great view and a great way to end the night. Although, as one diehard Cubs fan pointed out: "the Cubs look just as shitty from here as they do from the bleachers." They are pretty bad. But you gotta give it to them, they have very loyal fan support despite not having won a World Series since 1908. The streak is so long and unbearable that the Cubs' last World Series actually outdates Wrigley Field itself, which was built in 1914. After this experience, they're my new number two team in the National League. Those fans deserve a championship.

All in all, it was a fantastic night and a great way to spend a birthday. It was also the perfect activity to do after such an unhealthy drive. As Skyler said, baseball is so calm, relaxing and requires not too much mental effort to follow (as long as you're okay with missing a double switch here and there). If we had done something with anymore physical or mental exertion, I think we would have hit a wall. But the game was exactly what we needed and it was absolutely worth the drive.

We returned to our Motel 6, crashed and slept in the next morning. After some quick and greasy breakfast, we made our way downtown to the Art Institute of Chicago. I knew it was world renowned, but I had no idea that the museum's collection, especially its masterpieces, had so much variety. We spent almost three hours in the museum, spending most of our time in the modern art section before exploring some other exhibitions. I got to see one of my favorite paintings, Edward Hopper's Nighthawks which was very cool (it's just as enigmatic and ambiguous in person).

Afterwards we hung out in Millennium Park for an hour or so exploring some of the cool public art and tossing a frisbee (classic). Here are some photos:

Skyler trying to find my feet in the reflection.

Entering into the belly of the bean.

Once we had our fill downtown, Skyler and I drove to a suburb called Skokie to stay with my friend Yoni. It was great to see Yoni and meet his family. Originally, Skyler and I had planned to see Yoni at his camp in Michigan, but the timing did not really work out for us. I'm really glad, however, that we made this visit work in Chicago.

We watched the end of a thrilling World Cup game, played some bball in the driveway and then took a drive to Evanston to see Northwestern University. We walked along a path at the edge of campus/the shores of Lake Michigan. I had never seen one of the Great Lakes before, so I was stunned. Skyler and I are still convinced that we were looking at an ocean. 

As we walked along Lake Michigan we also had a great view of Chicago's skyline at dusk. We eventually found a nice place to sit on some large boulders and had a good conversation as the sky quickly darkened. After a while, we hopped into the car and went on a quest for food. We eventually settled on Taco Bell, where Skyler and Yoni forced me to try a burrito (I had never eaten Taco Bell before, and I'm still proud to say that I've never spent money there). It was a cheesy (no pun intended) birthday treat and I guess it wasn't that bad. Regardless, I was in good company for my birthday and that's all that mattered to me.

The three of us were exhausted when we got home so we decided to call it an early night. Yoni works at a hospital in Chicago and had to get up very early the next morning and we had a drive to Cincinnati ahead of us. In the morning, Yoni went on his way and we had a great breakfast with his folks, Susan and Sadok. His dad, Sadok, is from Israel and played semi-professional soccer during his heyday so he was very excited about the World Cup. In fact, he was getting ready to fly to Brazil in a few days to see one of the quarterfinal games, the two semis and the finals. Needless to say, Skyler and I were both envious. They were both very sweet people and they cooked us a filling meal to start the day (plus sandwiches for the road!).

Cincinnati

So we were on our way to our last stop. We left Yoni's house and headed directly to another good ol' friend of mine, Grace Cawdrey. I met Grace on my trip to Cambodia two years ago and other than her brief visit at Tufts earlier this year and a small reunion in NY, I hadn't gotten to see Grace at all. Getting a chance to hang out and catch up with her was awesome. But even better than that was finally getting to meet her legendary younger brothers, Timmy (15) and William (9). They are awesome kids--wild, free-spirited and so much fun. They matched the infamous stories that Grace had told me about them over the years. 

The visit was very laid back which was exactly what we needed. While we spent most of our time in chill mode, Grace and her brothers did give us a small taste of Cincy. They took us downtown near the University of Cincinnati campus where we tried Skyline Chili (supposedly the city's classic soul food) and Graeter's ice cream. Although our stomachs couldn't handle the rich chili dogs of Skyline, we were good to go for this ice cream. A friend of mine--prone to exaggeration--had told me that this was the best ice cream in the world. Before this experience, I protested her wildly subjective claims. But I'm eating crow on this one, this was the by far the best ice cream I've ever had in my life (I still refuse to admit it's a global best). I highly recommend the Raspberry Chip, it's got ridiculously large chocolate chips embedded in it. Those things are like woodchips made out of chocolate. 

After Graeter's, we all headed back to Grace's house for some good old fashioned summer shenanigans at the request of Timmy and Will. It mainly consisted of lighting firecrackers, Chinese lanterns and other miscellaneous items. Pure exhilaration. Seriously though, those little brothers are a blast. Skyler and I nicknamed William, the Prophet, for his ridiculous one liners that could be interpreted as wise, shrewd analyses of society.

Grace, Skyler and I also had a fun time sharing crappy videos that we had made over the years. I even got to see some previously unreleased footage from our trip to Cambodia which was really cool. It also brought back memories of moments that had completely escaped my mind. After some more goofing around, we called it a night and went to bed late. We slept in until 10:30 or so because the exhaustion was really getting to us. We had some quality time with El Prophet William for about an hour in the morning (as we made breakfast he was lighting some smoke bombs on the deck...we weren't the best babysitters in the world). Here are some photos from our stay with Grace:

Shenanigans.

So happy to be reunited.

Throwin' up the deuces.

Young (pseudo) intellectuals.

We took off from Grace's and drove to the house of Skyler's Uncle Mark which was only 25 minutes away. Mark was a great guy and we had a great stay with him and his kids, Stacy and Derek. We watched the Argentina/Switzerland game (Argentina pulled off the win in thrilling fashion) and then we had a frisbee session outside. Mark broke out some new tricks for us and further proved just how talented the Mueller brothers are when it comes to frisbee. I'd pay money to see them all square off in a game of ultimate. Here's a photo of me and Sky post-game:

Game day. Skyler's rocking the Messi jersey and I'm rocking the plain Argentina jersey....GO USA!

Once we had gotten nice and sweaty (it was a hot, sultry afternoon, heat turned up to bout 82) we headed back inside to watch the USA/Belgium game. It was disappointing, we were clearly the less talented squad on the field, but it was a thrilling game and we somehow got it all the way into extra time. But it was fun watching it with Mark, who has become a real expert on the US team and has watched almost all of the World Cup games so far. There's nothing better than watching a game with a knowledgable fan.

After the US lost in OT, we headed closer to the city to meet up with Skyler's cousin and Mark's son Derek. We had a nice dinner with him and his sister Stacy and it was very cool getting to meet more members of the Mueller clan. We drove back to Mark's house in a wicked thunderstorm with some of the largest lightning bolts I had seen on the trip. I had to drive through it even longer because I spent the night hanging out at Grace's house again, which was well worth it. We woke up relatively early, Mark treated us to a hearty breakfast and some air pressure for our tires, and then we were on our way home for Pennsylvania. It's safe to say our stop in Cincinnati was worth it. It was a relaxing and healthy way to end an amazing adventure. 

I'm going to post one more time very soon to wrap things up and give some final thoughts. There's no place like home...