Kathy and I are in culture shock.
When we arrived in Rapid City, we were slack-jawed at the modest size of the town. From there we transitioned into even more sparsely inhabited areas…areas were four-legged critters far outnumbered the two-legged ones.
We grew accustomed to a silence so pervasive that even the sound of the wind was a statement with an exclamation point.
The buffalo love that deep silence also. In fact, they hate noise of any kind. So, Kathy and I started making references to our “inner buffalos” as to when they were riled and when they were peaceful.
So here she is in a Native American tipi at the base of Bear Lodge on our last day. She went inside and asked me to snap a picture.
As I put the shot into focus, I asked, “What are you doing?”
“Channeling my inner buffalo.”
Ah. We’d been doing a lot of that lately.
When we drove back into Rapid City, we were slack-jawed once again. It had transformed into a huge metropolis of NY proportions. There were entirely too many cars.
When we touched down in Dulles Airport in Washington DC, our inner buffalos were ready to stampede.