Our Family Vacation In 1964

We were thrown in the back of a pick-up truck camper in 1964, My twin sister, my brother, and me. We were all fighting age. There was a mattress, comic books, three pillows, and an ice chest. We were told if we got into the ice chest we would be sorry, so we didn’t. Mommy and Daddy sat in the front. Daddy drove. Mommy smiled. If we rapped on the tiny in between window hard she might open it. Other times she glared and shook her head ‘no”. Going to the bathroom was expected at each stop, not many of them. We drove from Iowa to South Dakota. Saw the Corn Palace. It was amazingly beautiful; I never wanted to leave it. Saw Indians. We called them that in 1964, and I remember how beautiful they were. Like TV Indians that I used to root for more than the cowboys. Stopped at a park with enormous dinosaurs you could walk up and down. Mount Rushmore was exactly like the books. Did not interest me long. We reread and reread those twenty-two comic books, nothing else to do.... Except watch mile after mile after mile of badlands, all the same as the other. Pretty for the first mile or two, maybe three tops. I swear there are three thousand miles of Badlands in South Dakota.