In this past December’s article, I told you my sister Gail and I take a trip together, just the two of us, every five or six years. She lives in Oakland, California and we only get to see each other a couple of times a year during hurried family events. This year we went out West and this is Day Four of our adventure.
My sister had found us a cabin to stay in that was just a mile from the winery, the location of the wedding we were attending late that Sunday afternoon. There were two bedrooms and a kitchenette and it had knotty pine paneling and was decorated with antlers, deer heads, and such.
Since the wedding wasn’t until just before sunset, we decided to visit Custer State Park. I don’t know if I told you before but it’s worth repeating, when you turn 65 you can buy a $10 National Park Pass that lasts you the rest of your life. Apparently, they don’t think we seniors travel much or will live too long! Custer’s was a State Park, so we couldn’t use our pass. The Park is enormous — 71,000 acres of prairie hills. We knew there would be buffalo, but so far we had only caught sight of far off herds. In this park, they corral them into large areas (hundred of acres) with fencing and then put a metal grate across the road so they don’t wander off. We came across a huge herd traveling down to a watering hole, right along the fence line. We were able to park on the safe side and get right up next to them. There were females nursing their young, young males locking horns and old ones giving us the evil eye. It was incredible to see!
We stopped for a break at a little ranger station with exhibits of what we might see traveling across this enormous park. One of the rangers said to watch out for the “beggin’ burros” and we didn’t know what he was talking about, until we rounded the next bend and ran into a traffic jam. We couldn’t figure out what was the hold up, until we saw what the ranger had mentioned. Burros were all over the road poking their heads into tourist’s windows begging for food. I was munching on a snap pea – my sister is kind of a health nut and believe me burros don’t like snap peas. The white burro and baby pictured below were the ones with their heads in our window. It took awhile to get around the burros – stubborn as mules.
Custer Park also has black hills that from which some lookouts you can see Mt. Rushmore far off in the distance. My sister Gail taught photography back in the late 70s and early 80s at Ball State so she has the best of equipment and I’m the only family member who can appreciate that love of photography.
We headed back to our cabin to get gussied up for the wedding.
I’ve got to tell you the story about this wedding couple. The bride grew up in Grand Rapids, South Dakota and during the summer of 1982, she worked in a country club as a hostess – she was only 16. The groom was from Scotland and to earn college money, he came to the United States to work in a traveling carnival. He worked at one of the concession stands. Anyway, when the carnival stopped in Rapid City, he decided he just couldn’t crawl back into that semi to sleep one more night, so he started walking down the streets of Grand Rapids. He was looking for work — any kind of work. He asked at the country club where his soon-to-be bride was working for a job and got one in the kitchen — they always need kitchen help.
They became boyfriend and girlfriend and he met her family (5 sisters and no brothers). Her family loved him, especially her Dad. At the end of the summer he had to return to Scotland to go to college and she had to go back to high school. I don’t know if they corresponded or not but I’m guessing they did, but they graduated, got jobs, married someone else and had a couple of kids.
Then 4 years ago the bride’s Dad passed away and one of the sisters contacted the groom — through social media I think. She knew how much he loved her Dad and wanted him to know. He was living in southern California at the time, but travelled to South Dakota for the funeral. She was divorced and he separated. You guessed it, — they fell back in love and I was attending their wedding. The wedding date was exactly 34 years from the day they first met. Each had 2 children; the bride two sons 18 and 20 years old and the groom a daughter 20 and a son 18. So they had 3 freshmen in college this past fall — I don’t think you get a discount for volume.
The bride and groom just glowed under the setting sun out in front of a winery on a winding country road south of Rapid City. It was a touching ceremony with their children speaking and the groom’s daughter sang John Legend’s popular wedding song “All of Me.”
The reception was in an event space next to the winery. It was a charming log cabin with high ceilings and a big fireplace. Dinner was delicious and we sat with interesting guests. Music was supplied by a DJ who had all the oldies and the new stuff too for the young people.
I took a lot of pictures and as I was taking pics of the wedding cake and the cutting of the cake, the groom continued cutting up the cake himself and I helped grab plates. I told him I had been to a lot of weddings over the years, but I had never seen the groom cut and serve the cake — he said, well then who does? And I said, “well not the groom.” Such a thoughtful and charming man.
Even though the bride lives in California, she wanted the wedding to be in her hometown, because her mother was very ill. Her mother enjoyed the wedding and seeing all the family and friends (she passed away a few months later).
The bride works with my sister in San Francisco as an architect (building hospitals), but has decided to quit and write a book about her life. Can’t wait to see the movie they’ll make about it.
My sister and I love to dance, so we were the last ones on the dance floor that evening and luckily only had a mile to drive to our cabin very late that night.
Thus ended Day Four of a nine day adventure. Next time, I’ll write about “More Mt. Rushmore and the 11 hour drive across Wyoming to Yellowstone.”
