Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam, where the deer and the antelope play…. Driving solo allows for a good amount of thinking time and time to explore the things you want. One place we always try to stop is the truck stop called Little America. It has a special place in Kurt and my heart. You see it all started on my 1st cross country trip as a teenager heading back to Chicago.
A group of 8 of us were all driving back from Touchet, WA to Gary, Indiana to go to a church conference at Hyles Anderson College and 1st Baptist Church. Did I mention there were 8 of us, 3 ladies and 5 men, not small men either. We were all packed in like sardines to a 22 foot class C motorhome. The men all took turns driving, while the rest of us figured out where to move or sit without affecting too many others. They decided it would be best if we drove straight through. By the time we reached Little America, in Wyoming, Tresa, my foster mom had enough of the stench. So we stopped initially to only stretch our legs and get fresh air, but then when we found out we could shower and clean up, no convincing needed.
While each of us were waiting our turns to shower, we would peruse the grounds, walk the small trails, peruse the store and other novelty shops in that area. Too much time, sent the men down a wrong path. You see, I was the youngest at 16 of the ladies and there was only 1 other 15 year old young man with us. The rest were elders and deacons in our church, except Kurt. Kurt was a brand new christian at this time. He was trying to convince me that I should court him, so his motives and mindset were on a different path.
Needless to say, we walked through a taxidermy shop. I had never seen any stuffed dead animals before so it was all new and fascinating to me and the guys latched on. They had a jackalope stuffed and mounted on the wall. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it is a horned jackrabbit. I had never heard of such a thing and so asked one of our deacons in the church, Dave, last name not given to protect the almost innocent, what it was. After he explained it to me in a very scientific way, it seemed very logical to me and he was the deacon, why would I doubt him?
After we finally left little America, any one of the guys who was driving would claim they almost hit a whole herd of jackalopes, and if I wasn’t sleeping I would have seen them. When I asked where they lived, they told me in burrows just like jack rabbits. But how do they get in, I asked, with big horns? They informed me that they go in rut and lose their horns like deer so during the times of year they have the horns, they simply back into the burrows and of course only the boys have horns, so the girl and baby jackalopes would go in to the burrow first and be protected by the mighty male guarding the entrance.
Keep in mind that this is my foster dad, my future husband, one of my best friends, and 2 of the deacons from our church, that were all in on this. As I continued that senior year, I had just accepted it as fact. Until one day on my senior sneek, 2 of my best friends confronted me and told me it was all a lie. I was devastated and couldn’t understand why all those men would lie to me, especially Kurt. Needless to say, I got them back and I learned how to be the master prankster after that, so you could say that they set me on that path, and thank them for it, if you have ever been a victim of one of my practical jokes.
I have only seen mounted jackalopes in 3 places, Wyoming, Montana, and Utah, but everytime I do see them, I laugh, and think of my newest prank to pull on Kurt, hee hee. But what does that have to do with this statue of a Buffalo? Well, Kurt and I have gone all over this country, even been in South Dakota during a buffalo roundup, and have yet to see any buffalo in the wild. So this statue is the closest we have gotten to one and I just had to take a pic to send to Kurt, of course telling him that I finally saw one 😉
Until the next adventure…..
