Blog 3824 – 05.12.2026

Our Last Great Road Trip With Our Boy

Twenty years ago my wife, my son, and I decided spent Jonathan’s spring vacation that year to see what we could see on a drive from Houston, Texas to Mount Rushmore near Grand Rapids, South Dakota. In those days my wife Linda did all the driving and I was relegated to the role of shotgun and would be navigator. At fifteen, almost sixteen, Jay felt himself but a  backseat captive, trapped in a car with his parents and acted mostly unimpressed by scenes that filled my wife with awe. Once he even complained rather loudly at our overuse of the word “Wow.” I think that was at the first bison that we had ever seen. He was, it would seem, not only two cool for school, but also too cool to let himself enjoy the last long road trip with his parents. We had made several long road trips  throughout his young life and though they were great fun for us, Jay probably thought he was too grown up to be trapped in a car with his parents for all of spring break.

I had mapped out the most direct route there and back, yet when we were almost to Salina, Kansas heading north Linda said let’s go west on Interstate 70 to Denver and see the Rockies. Then began the detour that would create a lot more Wow(s) than the direct route there and back that I had planned. One of my wife’s favorite quotes has always been, “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.” We saw tumbleweeds, bison, antelopes, snow covered mountains, and drove half way across Colorado, all across Wyoming and into Montana. My direct route there and back would not have included the Little Big Horn in Montana nor Devil’s Tower in Wyoming.

Jay and I had a snowball fight at the foot of Devil’s Tower and Linda had us both in stitches laughing at her trying to get a picture of Praire Dogs popping their heads up out of their holes it was like watching someone play Wack-a-mole. I’m not sure if she ever got a picture, but she certainly tried.

We finally made it to Mount Rushmore. It was a wonder to behold the national monument that was begun in 1927 by the same guy who before had lead the construction of the Confederate monument at Stone Mountain, Georgia, Gutzon Borglum. His son, Lincoln Borglum, completed the work in 1941 after his father had previously died. The plan had originally been to depict the four Presidents standing but the cost and the War left only the head and shoulders of our first President, George Washington and faces of the other three, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.

You cannot see Mount Rushmore from the highway, but must take a winding road to get to the park. Just south of Rapid City the First People are working on a stone memorial to one of their great chiefs, Crazy Horse. That monument is visible from the highway and we drove up close to see the face which was all that was completed twenty years ago. It is being financed by donations from the public so the progress is slow. Here is a recent picture of the on-going construction:

In another picture in the foreground is a smaller sculpture showing what the monument will one day look like. It will not be completed in my life, my son’s, nor even my granddaughter’s. In twenty years they have only carved a few fingers of Crazy Horse’s pointing hand. And yet even what was completed twenty years ago was another Wow moment for a couple of pilgrims from Texas and their son who was trying hard not to be impressed.

After the Crazy Horse Monument we still had adventures awaiting us in Deadwood, South Dakota. The whole town is one big casino full of slot machines. After a night spent there we had a long high speed drive across South Dakota where my heavy-footed but beautiful bride talked her way out of a speeding ticket to Jay and my utter amazement, “Wow, what a woman.” Then Jay and I had another epic snowball fight in a motel parking lot in  Sioux Falls, South Dakota. 

Five Days, 3500 miles, and many Wows later we ended our journey where we began it. We were glad to be home, with a heart full of precious memories and a few pics to remind us of our whirlwind journey.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David James White