Into the woods and home before dark...

On trying new things (but like, within reason)

Hey all! It’s me, Claire.

I hope all my millions of readers are happy and enjoying the day (my friend Stephanie used to refer to her “millions” when we would go out to lunch and she would insist on paying). Last week I had a visit from a lovely friend of mine, Amory (who's parents showed me around her hometown of Shaker Heights, OH a few weeks ago), who I have known since my college days. We explored everything that *the touristy part of* South Dakota has to offer. We went to Sioux Falls and the World’s Only Corn Palace and the Dignity Statue and Al’s Oasis and the Badlands and Wall Drug and Mount Rushmore (get to googling if you haven’t heard of some of those).

As a fellow lover of musical theater (we met doing ‘Godspell’ in college), we listened to several OBC’s (Original Broad Cast recordings…get with the program!) and I heard a line in ‘Into the Woods’ that I don’t think I had ever noticed before. Cinderella is talking to the Baker’s Wife about her Prince Charming and whether or not she thinks she’d be happy if she were a princess and she says,

How can you know what you want ‘till you get what you want and you see if you like it?

I mean, isn’t musical theater just so magical and educational!? Because Cinderella is so right. I feel this way about a lot of things in my current life. I am notoriously a picky eater, who doesn’t like animals and isn’t the most athletic and doesn’t spend the most time enjoying the great outdoors. But last week I camped for the first time in my adult life and I pitched a tent all by myself (thanks Celeste and Tom) and I slept on the ground in my cool new sleeping bag (thanks Aunt Jean) and I’m hiking in the mountains and petting dogs and feeding cats and eating falafel and buying bear spray. And I’m not even a new woman; I’m just the woman I was before who is keeping an open mind and challenging myself to try things that aren’t exactly what I would think to do in my normal, everyday life.

I think the story goes that my mom’s grandma (who was known by “Mother, Please”—like, “Mother, please may I have…what was THAT about!?) introduced the idea of a “no thank you helping”. You didn’t get to say no to something but you didn’t have to take a whole plate full of beets when you knew beets probably were not going to be your thing. But what a shame never to try beets, just in case they end up being your FAVORITE thing. I’m trying to dive into as many things as I can that I already have an idea I’d like and take a “no thank you helping” of everything else. Because, who knows? You can think you like something or want your life to look a certain way, and then when you give other things a go, your world expands in ways you didn’t realize it could. And you also maybe won’t like beets, just like you thought, but at least you tried and you can move on with your life knowing that they’re not for you.

As I’ve gotten older, I find myself getting more scared of everything. I think back on things that I did in my early twenties and mid twenties and late twenties that I’m not sure I could do, even now, in my early thirties (like only a few years ago I was took a van to a remote part of Guatemala on barely established roads and I realize now that we ABSOLUTELY could have fallen off of a cliff). I hope to live for at least another 50 years (think of all the things I could do and see and eat in that amount of time!) but if things continue to trend in this scaredy-cat direction, or if I just decide who I am and what I like and never venture outside of that, I will end up missing out on a lot of things that are worth doing. So I have to make a conscious effort to do things that make me feel a little bit scared (but not TOO scared and sometimes with a friend who knows what they’re doing so I feel supported).

I am really focusing on trying to try; things, foods, experiences, relationships, opportunities. Whatever comes my way, I want to, within in reason, give it a go and see what happens.

Here are some pictures of my South Dakotan adventure with my friend Amory where I did a mix of familiar and brand new things:

We stayed in an Air BnB with an appreciation for Gershwin

We spent the morning in Sioux Falls—this picture was taken by using the stand I use for Zoom-ba classes and a phone timer. We had been going for 10 seconds but this one was only 3 seconds!

We stopped at the World’s Only Corn Palace (there used to be a bunch of them, if you can believe it, but this one is the only one still around). It’s mostly just like a building with a basketball court and a gift shop across the street. But they had a Corn Cam that live streams around the world and my friend Renee took this screenshot of me on it from Boston

There was SO much to do at the Corn Palace!

We stopped at the Dignity statue which overlooks a beautiful lake. You’ll have to google it to get a sense of the size of it (very very large)

Al’s was mostly a grocery store and gas station and restaurant but it’s advertised as an important tourist stop when you look up what to do in South Dakota

I met THE Al in his very own Oasis (not pictured—an unbelievable amount of taxidermized animals. Like a full zoo in the grocery store)

We went to the Badlands National Park and it was like being in outer space

We stopped at a lot of stops along the way to look at landscapes like this and then to see 1 zillion prairie dogs, an entire football team of Bison (Amory got out but I have seen a lot of YouTube videos of people getting gored by Bison so I just appreciated them from the car), several big horned sheep, a pronghorn (thanks for looking that up Roisin) and some large birds. It was pretty KEWL.

There’s another “must see” stop about 15 minutes outside of the Badlands called Wall Drug. It’s just basically a giant gift shop with dumb stuff like this for you to take pictures with.

Amory was on the hunt for a Jackalope the whole time we were in South Dakota and she finally found one and befriended it!

After the Badlands we went to the one and only Mount Rushmore!

And then I make Amory watch me pitch a tent for the first time in my adult life (I wouldn’t let her help because I’m camping by myself in Grand Tetons National Park in a couple weeks and I needed to make sure I could do it on my own!)

Amory camped with me night 1 and I camped night 2 by myself. What a great adventure partner she was! I’m so glad she came along for this leg of the journey!

After I took apart my camp site, I made my way back to the Crazy Horse Memorial. I had gone the day before and they told me that the next there would be a special celebration because it was Crazy Horse’s birthday and the day he died—what timing! (for me and Mr. Crazy Horse)

I saw Starr Chief Eagle perform a Native American Hoop dance (and then spent 5 hours in their café writing a grant—-it’s all about BALANCE)

A selfie of me and my friend Stephanie (the one with the millions) who always encouraged me to go on adventures. I know she’d be excited to hear about all the new things I’m trying.

After South Dakota, I pit stopped in Nebraska for a few days, drove through the corner of Wyoming and now I’m in Colorado for a few more days. I’ll share more pictures of the beautiful scenery soon!

-Claire <3

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