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“Yeah,” I say. “The Black Hills is where we’re going. We’ll let you know what they’re like if we pass through this way again.”
When we’re back in the car, Scott asks if I really want to go there.
“Have you ever seen Mount Rushmore?”
“No,” he admits.
“Then why not?”
It’s too far to make it today, even if we jumped on the interstate. Besides, I remind Scott, we’re not in a rush. So we stay on the back roads that run through fields, past marshes, into towns. We drive down main streets with post offices and general stores. We drive past schools and through neighborhoods with American flags sticking out of mailboxes. We pass a diner with a hand-written sign that says “Breakfast served all day,” and we stop for lunch.
The waitress hands us two laminated, greasy menus and tells us to sit anywhere. “You want coffee?”
We nod and take a table by the window. We’re the only ones in here. One side of the menu lists breakfast items: bacon and eggs, biscuits and gravy, pancakes. The other side lists burgers and sandwiches: BLT, Reuben. I’ll just have a plate of fries.
The waitress comes over with our coffees. “Where you from?”
“Moorhead,” Scott tells her.
“What brings you here?”
“We’re just passing through. Checking things out.”
She laughs. “Nothing to check out here! You better keep moving if you want to check anything out.” She reminds me of a waitress in a movie who saves up for a bus ticket out of her small hometown.
I glance out the window, imagining what it's like to live here. This is the center of the country. The Heartland, with farmhouses and men in pickup trucks and women in sundresses with boots and braided hair.
“What’s there to do here?” I ask.
“Nothin’,” she says, straight-faced.
“What do the people who live here do?” I push.
“Nothin’. I’m telling ya.”
While we eat, she comes over about ten times, asking questions and walking our answers back to the kitchen to share with the cook, who peeks out at us through the order window. She wants to know why we left Moorhead.
“Because there was nothing holding us there,” I tell her.
She wants to know where we’re going, and we tell her we don’t know.
“If I was you,” she says, “I’d go to California.”
We leave her a big tip, to help with her bus ticket out of here, and get back in the car. Soon, the town’s behind us. I take off my shoes and?put my feet up on the dash. I almost feel bad, leaving that waitress behind. “We should’ve asked her to come along,” I tell Scott. “Who knows, maybe she just needed an invitation. Maybe she’s been waiting her whole life for someone to invite her to leave.”
“Naw. She had a wedding ring. She’s married. Probably has kids.” Scott’s way more observant than I am. I hadn’t noticed the ring.
We drive past fields and farms, and I gaze at the magnificent sky, with its cloud formations as beautiful as any Monet painting. I put my Simon and Garfunkel tape on and sing along to “Mrs. Robinson” and “Homeward Bound.”
Scott’s quiet, staring ahead. Then he turns the music down. “We’re going to need to figure out where we’re going, beyond the Black Hills," he says. "Our money’s going to run out fast.”
“Okay.”
He stares ahead.
“We made the right decision,” I tell him. “Really, we did. It was just a job. And we wouldn’t have been happy with it. Giving up a little bit of security in order to pursue happiness is worth it any day. We’re going to go build our own life together, on our terms, okay?”
He nods.
“So enjoy the ride!” I turn the music back up and sing along as we roll down the back roads of South Dakota, past fields and meadows with horses running wild.
At the next gas station, we switch places so Scott can rest. I get behind the wheel and turn back on to the open road.
“Where should we spend the night?” Scott wonders, the map spread out on his lap.
“I don’t know. Are there any little camping symbols nearby?”
“No. We’d have to backtrack and go south. Or go way up to Pierre. We might just have to find a hotel.”
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