August 28, 2012

HOT SPRINGS IS A SMALL TOWN.  It is so small that when you boot up your computer, you are not greeted with the usual: “See available singles in Hot Springs!” Tired of the motel’s “deluxe free breakfast,” I decided to go out for breakfast this morning. As usual, Carole was not hungry for a big breakfast. I drove around town looking for pickup trucks parked in front of a diner, my time-tested method of locating a place for an early morning breakfast. The only place I found with the tell-tale pickup trucks was a bakery. When I parked and entered, I noted that I was the only guy there without a ball cap. I knew that the other customers had quickly sized me up as an uppity auslander. When the perky waitress asked me if I would like to try Crepe Suzettes, the special of the day, I replied: “[n]o, I don’t want any of that French stuff; I want some good old American food.” Everyone in the place guffawed and I was no longer regarded as an auslander.

Despite my ambivalence about George Armstrong Custer, we planned to go to Custer State Park today. We changed our minds when we saw that the temperature was supposed to be around 103 degrees. Instead of Custer Park, we went to The Wind Cave National Park. We have been on numerous cave tours, but we figured that we would at least avoid the excessive heat. Like most cave tours, this one had an inordinate number of steps, some 350 mostly dry steps. Also, like most cave tours, there were certain passages which necessitated a Chuck Berry/Groucho Marx duck-walk.

At several points, the Ranger would stop and marvel at the beauty of the old grey rocks and give the scientific explanation as to how the cave was formed. Having heard many of these scientific speeches before, I was again convinced that cave tour guides revert to ancient Urdu when delivering their spiel. I couldn’t hear most of what he was saying anyway because a couple in the tour group kept babbling loudly in Polish. Predictably, Carole “the enforcer” marched over with her serious teacher look and convinced them to stop babbling. I wasn’t surprised by Carole’s actions. I once witnessed her march over to a police car and inform the driver that he was blocking traffic during his double parking gab fest.

What cave tour would be complete without the inevitable blackout? Such a blackout shows that without light, it gets very black. This one took a little longer than usual to start because so many people were carrying light emitting electronic gadgets. At the last Ranger “stop and talk,” he mentioned that only one person had ever been lost in the cave. With that, I could not resist.

“I think I once read a book where two kids, Tom and Becky, were lost in this cave.” 

“Um, I haven’t read that book.”

“Well, maybe it was some other cave.”
 

Tomorrow, despite a predicted temperature of 104, we are stopping at the Custer place on our way to Rapid City: more about Custer tomorrow.