Driving Coast to Coast, with Baby…

Some might say it was foolish to drive across the country with an 8 month old little girl, but I believe Elsie enjoyed the ride, for the most part, and at least now she’ll have some pictures to prove she’s actually driven across America, or riden across America rather.  She didn’t do any driving though it would have been a nice break for her parents if she had.

There’s this great book of photographs book called “The Red Couch” where these two German fellows drive around America with a big red couch and take portraits of people sitting upon it.  This blog entry here is the baby version of that idea, except we didn’t get people to sit on Elsie, and we’re not German.  Here’s Elsie showing off her two teeth in front of the Badlands in South Dakota.   

Although we didn’t stop at Mt. Rushmore we did see this somewhat strange “Presidents Park” where they had huge busts of mostly republican presidents in the middle of a cornfield. 

Later on we checked out the enormous Crazy Horse Memorial, which really is something to behold.  If you are ever in the neighborhood, I suggest stopping by because it is a work in progress and quite impressive.  Maggie and I had actually stopped there about 12 years ago and it was just a face in the side of the hill, now it’s starting to take shape.  They say that all of Mt. Rushmore could fit in Crazy Horse’s ear.  That’s how big it is.  When it’s done he’ll be riding on a horse and pointing at something.

Elsie and Vidamae the hound became pretty close during the trip.  Here’s Elsie holding her leash as Vidamae checks out the picnic baskets in Yellowstone Park.

And then we saw Old Faithful!   It really is faithful!  Every 90 minutes, it blows.

 
After that we stopped by to see my aunt Madhavi and her partner Mike in the small town of Darlington Idaho.  They own a ranch out there and raise beef cattle and goats and alfalfa.  We arrived at 10pm and Madhavi was just making dinner.  Mike was still out in the fields turning over the alfalfa he’d just cut.  After dinner he lay down for about an hour and then went right back out.  Madhavi herds the goats in this four wheeler.  She raises them for slaughter.  Goat is the most popular edible meat in the world.

Madhavi and Mike have been together for almost 30 years and have no kids, by choice.  They keep themselves very busy with this ranch.  It’s like their kid, except proably even more demanding.  Ever since they moved there at least one of them has always been there to make sure things are running right. 

Madhavi told us about some petroglyphs nearby so we took a look at them, and then hit the dusty trail agian.

to be continued…