The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

I rose early full of beans and looking forward immensely to today’s short drive. The day promised the fabled Black HIlls of Dakota, followed by the carved mountain called Rushmore. I ate my “complimentary” breakfast and hit the road.

I had the misfortune to overtake a slow vehicle at just the point where a Nebraska state trooper had cannily positioned his car. I was executing the most dangerous manoeuvre in driving with my usual gusto – the better to get it over with and return to safety – and was convinced he would pull me over. Thankfully he didn’t and I left that fair state unmolested.

South Dakota, from what I have seen of it so far, is such a very pretty state that I may have to revise the location of my fantasy American home. The Black Hills are beautiful and force the landscape into shapes that required road builders to throw away their rulers and set squares. Roads rising and falling and curving left and right led me through beautiful scenery.

I had an unpleasant passage through severe fog at one point. Locals more confident of the road ahead became impatient with my caution and one nearly got us both killed by overtaking when he had no visibility and narrowly missing an oncoming car. The fog cleared shortly after that and soon I was keeping up with the flow again and enjoying myself.

My hotel for the night is in the South Dakota village of Keystone, a busy tourist resort this Memorial Day weekend. I saw it on my way to Mount Rushmore, just a couple of miles up the road.

The park itself was heavily attended and I was in line to pay for my parking pass for a little while. An amiable attendant came over to chat while I waited and told me he loved working there because he is a car enthusiast and gets to see all kinds of wonderful examples.

The original commission for the statues dynamited, hammered and carved out of Mount Rushmore was for legends of the Old West. How different a monument that would have been! The sculptor though, wanted national figures more worthy (as he thought) of his endeavours. Those of you who read this blog when it’s not in travelogue mode will not be surprised that I wish he had done what was asked of him.

The guy was a brilliant artist and the statues – though incomplete – are a masterpiece. There is no question of that. What Mr Borglum, with hundreds of assistants, achieved at Mount Rushmore is magnificent and well worth a visit – particularly as the surrounding countryside is so beautiful. I don’t know enough about the other two to venture a guess, but I suspect Presidents Washington and Lincoln would not have approved of such godlike portrayals, verging as they do on idolatry. 

Still, it’s done now. I might have preferred a mountainous likeness of Wyatt Earp, but Americans like what they have – and so, reluctantly, do I. Despite the inexplicable omission of my hero Tom Paine from the group, I enjoyed my time there immensely. 

A remarkable incident happened as I left the car park. A family flagged me down and told me they had seen me at Lake Itasca, at the headwaters of the Mississipi. The German au pair in the group had pointed me out as being the same guy and they had immediately recognised Speranza, of course. I stopped for a brief chat with them before heading off wondering at such an enormous coincidence. In a country this size, what are the odds?