Family reunion and Mount Rushmore, too

 

The last time I saw my dad’s siblings and their children, there were a whole lot more of them than there are now.

My dad was the seventh born of 10 children to Roy and Wanda Southern. Two weeks ago Sandy and I were at a family reunion in Colorado where my dad and his sister Jacquita (nine of 10) were the only remaining siblings. I don’t know what my cousin count is down to, but it’s a lot less than it was the last time I attended a Southern family reunion in 1994.

Attending reunions has not been easy. My dad is from California and my mother was from Omaha. Our family lived in Colorado. Every summer we alternated which set of relatives we visited. We became very familiar with Interstate 80 between the late 1960s and early 1980s.

When I grew up and moved away, I lived in Minnesota and North Carolina before returning to Colorado. After nine years back in Colorado, we moved to Texas. With time, distance, and finances, it was extremely difficult to attend reunions in California. Each year I said the same thing: Next time.

The next time came and went and I made the same promise. Over the years aunts, uncles and cousins started passing away. Finally, last year my cousin Colleen announced she wanted to have a family reunion in Estes Park, Colorado, instead of California. That works! Without kids at home, Sandy and I could afford to go. We stayed with my parents, who live just 45 minutes from Estes Park. My Aunt Jacquita stayed there, too, so we got extra visiting time with her.

Colleen and her husband Neil and her brother Danny and his wife Linda brought their RVs and made camp in an RV park. Although we were just a fraction of the Southern clan, it was a joyous time to be together. My daughter Heather (who lives in Colorado) joined us for the second day, becoming the only representative of that generation of the family.

Being with family again lifted more than 30 years of guilt of missing reunions and being out of contact with my family. Having reconnected, I’m more determined to stay in touch.

After the reunion, Sandy and I took Heather and her roommate Maria for an overnight trip to see Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. Of the four of us, only Heather had seen it before.

As we made the five-hour trip up, I braced myself for disappointment. Over the years I had a lot of friends say they were surprised at how small the carvings of the presidents’ heads appear and how there is nothing to do there once you’ve seen them. They were wrong!

After checking into our motel room, we drove toward the monument as the clouds thickened and rain started to fall. We unexpectedly drove by the Crazy Horse monument, which was a huge bonus! When we rounded the corner into the parking lot at Mount Rushmore, the sculpture seemed to burst through the clouds and loomed large overhead. It was much bigger and more majestic than I ever imagined.

After we parked the car and walked in, fog settled over the mountain and the faces disappeared. We got one brief break where we could see all four at once and then they were gone. We walked around the site, checking out the little museum and bookstore there. We watched a short film on the creation of the monument and then settled in for the ranger talk. At the end of the talk, they turned on the spotlights and lit up the fog where the faces should have been.

The next morning we got up and stopped at the Crazy Horse monument site, which was a great experience and well worth the time. We then drove back to Mount Rushmore and this time the weather was perfect. We hiked the Presidential Trail, toured the Sculptor’s Studio and took hundreds of photos. We stopped in the gift store on the way out and picked up a few souvenirs.

After discovering all of the things to see and do in the Black Hills area of South Dakota, we determined that we want to go back some day and tour some more. Come to think of it, it would be a great place to have a family reunion. I just don’t want to wait another 30 years for that to happen!