First off, I have to say, “I love the Black Hills.” I really do. They are beautiful, restful, and always fun to visit. With the exception of just one little trip back in 1995.
Mom had grown up in the Black Hills of South Dakota, so she had real ties to the area as well as a real love for it that she had instilled in me during our relatively frequent trips out there. One of her childhood friends had a vacation home near Custer. Usually, when we visited the Hills, we stayed with this friend. This time, Julia would not be there, so we were renting the property from her for a week.
We normally flew into Rapid City and then rented a car. But this time we had a puppy with us. His name was Rembrandt and he was a not-quite-one-year-old miniature Schnauzer. Fortunately, he loved road trips. We had a harness for him that connected to the seatbelt, so he was securely fastened into the back seat. He could sit up or lie down, but he couldn’t move around much on the seat or stand. Most importantly he would not be thrown should the car make a quick stop. We pulled over every two hours to stretch our legs, take a restroom break, give Rembrandt some water, get some food for ourselves, etc. People in the vicinity seemed to be quite amused when I brought a dog out of the back seat instead of a baby or small child.
Another friend of Mom’s lived in a small town in South Dakota. She was interested in having us come and visit her (puppy and all), so we stopped off for the night en route from Minneapolis to Rapid City. She was a very gregarious woman and welcomed us all with open arms. Rembrandt was very friendly towards people and other dogs, though he did not suffer fools gladly when it came to another dog who was not totally in control of his or herself. Because of this I was terribly surprised when he took a dump in the middle of Hazel’s living room. He knew better. Hazel laughed it off. Rembrandt pretended nothing was amiss. Mom and I were mortified.
We were coming from a different direction than usual when we reached the Black Hills. It was also raining quite hard. So we chose to stay on main roads as much as possible. We didn’t realize at the time that it had been raining heavily for days already. When we reached the bridge in Hill City that we needed to cross to get to Custer, we found that it was already having issues. It ended up washing out just about an hour or so after we crossed it.
We got to Custer and decided to get just a few groceries to tide us over for a couple of days. We would get more when we ventured out to go visit Hot Springs (the town in which Mom had lived as a child). So I hopped out of the car, bought a few things and hurled the wet bag and my soggy self into the car. The road to Julia’s vacation home was a dirt road at that time and so not the greatest on even a lovely, sunny day. During the thunderstorm, we found ourselves crawling at a snail’s pace through the mud. The bolts of lightning were actually helpful to let us occasionally see approximately where we were.
One bolt of lightning illuminated the gate to the property just as we were about to pass it by. I opened the gate and then waded through the muddy water along the fence to find the key to the house. Naturally, I slipped at one point. By the time I returned to the car, I strongly resembled the Swamp Thing. We both decided that I shouldn’t get back into the car. So I walked a little ahead of it, with my flashlight in hand, to try to prevent any accidents with anything that might be in the drive or under the deck of the house (which was where we planned to park and where the door that the key fit into was located). There was already a truck parked under the deck, so we could only get the nose of the car’s hood under. We also had to squeeze past the truck to get into the door. I unlocked and opened the door, then we had a mad dash to get everything and everyone inside. By this time, we were all looking like we had seen better days.
The next day, after all bunking together in the main bedroom for warmth (nobody had thought that heat would be needed in mid-June), I decided it was time to take Rembrandt out for his morning constitutional. At home he had a fenced in, nicely mowed yard. Here he was dealing with wet grass that was taller than he was. Although the yard was fenced, there was plenty of room for a small dog to get through the fencing, which was mainly designed to keep bison, elk and bear out. So the little guy was on a leash. He was obviously not in the mood and was letting me know it.
Because he was determined not to do anything in the tall grass, and the only places on the property where the grass was shorter had rocks (and the possibility of snakes), we went out of the gate and across the road to an area that had been mowed not too long ago. While he was looking for just the right spot, we both heard a very loud growl. Whatever it was, it was large and not happy. I was envisioning a bear. I looked at Rembrandt and he looked at me. “You’re the appetizer,” I said, “But I’m the main course.” With that, we high-tailed it back across the road and into the relative safety of the fenced property. He ended up going in the high grass between the house and the very swollen French Creek.
We had decided to take it easy on our first day anyway (it was supposed to be a vacation after all). So a little later on in the day, Mom was crocheting, I was needlepointing and Rembrandt was playing with a toy in the large living area on the first level up from ground level when a big storm came up suddenly. This vacation house was a geodesic dome, so loads of glass. It was hailing. We took refuge in the dining room, which was still one floor up from ground, but had the least amount of windows (there was a bedroom above it).
Once the storm had begun to die down a little, I went downstairs to see what shape that level was in. The previously sluggish toilet had become clogged and water was now coming up the drain in the laundry room. The sewer began to back up and we could no longer get any water in the bathroom on the ground floor or the kitchen above it. So I started calling motels in Custer to see if there was one with a vacancy that would take a dog. In the meantime, Mom packed us up. Once I got us booked into a motel, Mom called Julia to let her know what was happening and where we would be. There might have been mobile phones in 1995, but we didn’t own one.
Despite not being under any kind of shelter during the hail storm, the car thankfully wasn’t damaged. We loaded it up and went into Custer. Rembrandt took it all in stride. He was the kind of dog who was fine as long as he had us with him. The motel was good and had a restaurant next door, so we could take turns having a meal while the other one looked after Rembrandt. The grass was mowed, so no trying to get the puppy to do his business in the tall grass. They also had a TV that worked. We had been thinking about staying one more day so we could visit Hot Springs and then head home. But the news said that more storms were coming in the afternoon of the next day and would last for the rest of the week. That did it. We would get up in the morning, have breakfast, and try to outrun the storm.
By the time we arrived in Mitchell (about midway home), we checked into a place that not only allowed dogs, but had room service. After a good supper, we went to bed, listening to the strains of children playing in the pool a couple floors below in the courtyard. The storm soon caught up with us. Around 4:00am, we were jolted awake by a loud bang and a flash of light that seemed to be simultaneous. The fire alarms went off. We quickly pulled on our jeans (already sleeping in T-shirts), grabbed Rembrandt, his leash and our purses and went out into the hall. Once we got downstairs, I figured we would be going out of the door into the night. I was certain it was a fire. The other guests were certain it was a tornado. So we all clustered just inside of the exit door until we could either smell smoke or hear the tornado. Everyone marveled at how well behaved and calm Rembrandt was. He just sat in my arms and watched everyone.
It turned out we were all wrong about what was happening. A bolt of lightning had hit the satellite dish on the roof. The dish was totally fried, but no fire. It seemed to us that the storm had been ticked off that we had tried to get away from it and decided to zap us in Mitchell. Kind of a “hey, you think you can escape me, do ya?” sort of thing. A little past 4:30am we were back in our beds, visions of home dancing in our heads.
We were wishing we had some ruby slippers to click the heels together and be immediately home. Instead, we got up at 7:00am, had a good breakfast from room service, packed up the car again and drove home — thankful for our escape and the lovely weather back in Minneapolis.