South Dakota Real and Imagined

Dinner with the Fuss family will be remembered as a highlight of our trip.
Adelaide MacKenzie Fuss is a native of Newport Beach and now lives with her husband Larry and 3 kids in Rapid City, South Dakota. She is the author of The Water Men, a novel which is set in Newport Beach. You can read a review of the book here.
I haven’t seen her in more than 12 years, but the minute she found out we were passing through her town, we were made to feel like royalty.

We spent several hours and stayed for dinner in her historic Victorian house built in 1880 – six years after gold was discovered in the Black Hills and a gold rush began and 9 years before South Dakota became a state. It was a tumultuous time for the Sioux and Lakota tribes who considered the black hills sacred.

The house, as the saying goes, has been a labor of love. Adelaide and Larry are remodeling the huge house one section at a time. Their home is a reflection of their eclectic, fun and highly individualistic spirit. I envied their vision and ability to ignore trends. It was Victorian architecture meets Black Hills Industrial meets retro Palm Springs. Funky, original, homey.

Adelaide in her kitchen.

Me giving the dogs (Maggie, Mylo, Buford, and Jeff) a treat. Buford is the neighbor's dog and is a redbone coonhound like Old Dan and Little Ann!


My mom, the kids and I were treated to a casual dinner of pizza and buffalo burgers. The delicious buffalo burgers Adelaide made could only be topped by the lively conversation and the funny antics of the three dogs the family has rescued.

Yesterday we left Rapid City after dropping my mom off at the airport and began our rainy trek across the great state of South Dakota. Rapid City is located near the Western boarder and Sioux Falls – is at the opposite end of the state, 5 hours east.

The scenery was beautiful but I had a few white knuckled moments on the highway - huge truck tires splashing water up from the road exacerbated the poor visibility from the falling rain on the windshield. I didn’t want the kids to know the enormity of the responsibility I was feeling for all of our safety and how scared I was driving, almost blindly at times past the big trucks.

I will fondly remember the less stressful parts of the drive (gentler rain) with affection for the Great Plains - rolling hills, huge fields of sunflowers growing, fields dotted with enormous rolls of hay.
It was easy to imagine the Lakota tribes, out there beyond the farmland, smoke rising from the tops of their tepees in the distance.

I imagined lines of covered wagons horses and people beyond I-90 I was driving on. Pioneers, after weeks of sun burnt miles, thirsty, caked with dirt, blistered hands and feet. This rain would have felt good in the beginning but make a muddy mess and chill each person to the bone as it continued. My digital car thermometer read only 40 degrees, not taking into account the wind.

I imagined Massive dinosaurs like the skeletons unearthed not far from here that we had seen at the museum in Rapid City; running, fighting and gnashing food in their powerful jaws.

I also could vividly see Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, with their 60 twenty something men. After a long day of travel and collecting soil and plants from this new frontier to send to President Jefferson with detailed notes, they would be setting up camp for the evening now. Writing in their journals may have to wait for the rain to stop, as ink and water do not mix.

At one point I excitedly turned off the highway following the sign to

“Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Home”

but the kids started complaining they didn’t want to see it and it really didn’t mean anything to them – UGGHHHH- where did I go wrong! – they just aren’t into the Little House books. So already with a long drive and poor weather, uncertain of how far down her house would be, I agreed to turn around on the rural road, head back to the main highway and said, “Well, OK, just try to picture that this is where she lived”

I wonder… how will history remember us – one of thousands of cars, trucks, or RVs driving on the paved highway through the Great Plains?