World of Autism

Well, it’s our last day in the Hills, and we don’t want to leave!  Lucas comes ALIVE when he’s away from home.  We’re convinced it’s because he’s free of the television, vcr and computer.  But of course, we need to get back to civilization, which includes all those things.

We said goodbye to our friends Dallas and Mary Deitrich, and Lucas bid farewell to Rattlesnake Jake.  I promised myself that I would focus my “Parenting an Autistic Child” article for September on their amazing Meeting The Need endeavor.

 We left the hills on the 22 of August, driving across South Dakota through the day.  We camped just south of Sioux Falls that evening.  We had been around Sioux Falls before, but had never explored it (it was just another place we went past on our way to our Black Hills!)

I had read that the city was named after the waterfall that the town was built up around.  So after dinner, we decided to drive into town and see the actual “Sioux Falls”.   As usual, the people of South Dakota were more than happy to give us directions, and at dusk we beagn to travel through the city in search of “Falls Park”.

When we got the Falls Park, it was full dark.  But the park was alive with people!  Families were riding bikes along the lighted paths and couples young and old were out strolling, enjoying the balmy summer air.

A nice lady who worked at the park told us about a show they were having later; the history of Sioux Falls was told with laser animation on the side of a building next to the falls.  This “history lesson” was accompanied by an ever-changing light show on the falls themselves, and was narrated over loud speakers.

Lucas LOVED the show!  This was the Wild West, and the story was rife with fist fights, saloons, ladies of ill repute and even kids with pea shooters!  The whole show was done with an eye towards entertaining folks of all ages, using actual letters and news clippings from those times.  I wish whoever put this together would do the same for school history curriculums!

This will be our last night in South Dakota.  We’ll be home in a few short days now, stopping on our way to see Lucas’ big brother Robert.  My birthday is in 2 days, and I hope we’re in Pitstburgh, where Robert is now living, in time to have my birthday dinner with him.

I think Alan and I are both a little sad to be heading back to the East, with its crime, traffic, litter and problems.  But for now it’s home, and we know it’s where we need to be for Lucas.  So we’ll continue to head east, towards televisions, vcr’s, school and work, and keep our dreams of living in the Hills close by, just in case…

We traveled south today, to the town of Hot Springs.  It’s named for the amazing springs that run through the town, and the people who live (and visit) here can take their water bottles to the springs andd fill-r-up!  The water is about 90 degrees, and delightful. 

We’ve been here before, and enjoyed both the beautiful waterfalls in town, and swimming at Evan’s Plunge, an indoor swimming pool made from the hot springs.  They bubble up from the river rock covered bottom of the pool, keeping the water warm and clean year round.

Today, however, we were headed to the outskirts of Hot springs, to a place called the Mammoth Site.  This is a giant pre-historic sink hole where many giant Mammoths lost their lives, going in to drink the water and then being unable to get out of the hole.

The whole place is inside a huge building, and it has a tour that lasts about 30 minutes.  The partially excavated sink hole is in the middle of the room, with cat walks over and around it for us to walk on.

Lucas really liked the tour, because as we moved from place to place, we had to put on earphones at the various stopping points to hear our tour guide.  The moving around combined with the wearing of headphones seemed to keep his interest (not to mention the giant skeletons!)

I suspect Lucas feels a bit like Indiana Jones on these excursions, and that’s another thing he likes to relate to.  He’s seen Indy finding “bones”, hiking through the woods, dealing with snakes (like Lucas did at Reptile Gardens), etc.

Yesterday we toured wind Cave, which Lucas liked.  It was a quiet day, with the afternoon spent at our campsite just enjoying the scenery (and the cookout!)

We DID see a buffalo up close, on our way back from Wind Cave:

This isn’t all that unusual in the Black Hills, since the Hills are home to one of the largest herds left.  But we thought it was kind of strange to see one lone bull just grazing next to the road.

Today we had to go into town to get our groceries.  As we arrived in town, we heard a “peep, peep” that sounded REALLY familiar.  We looked around, and much to Lucas’ eternal pleasrue, Thomas the Tank Engine was pulling into the train station, with his coaches!

WOW!  A full sized Thomas, caught being a Really Useful Engine here in the middle of nowhere, South Dakota!  Needless to say, Lucas had his picture taken with Thomas.  He just wanted to look, though, not ride (I think he was afraid that if we took a ride, maybe we’d miss eating all the cookout food we had just bought…)

Keeping Lucas entertained on vacation means finding something different to do each day.  Today it was a trip to the Reptile Gardens.

Yes, it’s just like it sounds.  It’s a garden full of reptiles.  MOST of them are behind glass, but there’s this large “sun dome”, and the idea is to walk around in it, enjoying the thousands of orchids and hundreds of tropical birds.  Of course, you must also come to grips with walking under trees where boa constrictors hang.

In spite of those boas, this place has become one of our “must visit” places when we come to the Black Hills.  We attended the “Alligator Show”, and it was educational, thrilling and funny.

One guy in a fenced arena, with about 40 alligators (recently fed, I’m guessing), telling us all about alligators and crocodiles.  Crike!

After the show, Lucas got to “pet” a miniataure crocodile, and thought that was pretty cool:

Then we drove up to Deadwood, to show Lucas this one hotel that had movie props from Indiana Jones, Terminator, the Mummy and others. 

Here he is with the Mummy, MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Many people in the world of autism LOVE trains.  Personally, I think it has something to do with them knowing exactly where the train will go, since it can only travel on the track.  That has to be reassuring to an autistic person, with their need for samenesss.

We spent the morning riding an 1880′s steam train through the Black hills.  This isn’t the first time we’ve taken this trip, and from start to finish, Lucas loves it.

We get to hang out in the train yard before we depart, looking at the various engines and cars.  Our train this morning was pulled out of the shed by a diesel engine, and then hooked up to the steam engine that would pull it on our jouney.

We traveled from Hill City to Keystone and back, winding our way through narrow granite passes, past abandoned tin and gold mines.  Along the way, the conductor told us stories about the country we rode through, from the boom towns during gold rushes to the ranches that currenlty border the tracks.

Lucas was in heaven, and the morning passed quickly!

After lunch, it was time to visit another amazing place.  The toured Meeting The Need, an old tin mine that our friends Dallas and Mary Deitrich have converted into a vacation place for people with disabilities.  They’ve done a tremendous job, and we’re so glad we got to see it!

We spent most of today in Rapid City, hunting for a train for Lucas.  You see, he’s traveled all the way across the country with his model DeLorean from Back to the Future 3, in hopes of finding a train that can push it, just like in the movie.

Unfortunately, the car is in “car scale”, and the trains are all made in “train scale” and they just don’t mesh.  Try explaining that to an autistic kid who’s just brought a car 2000 miles for a train!

Of course, we saw lots of great train models and he DID find a small engine that he wanted.  Luckily, we bought tickets this morning for a ride on an 1880′s steam train that runs through the Black Hills, so he’ll enjoy that like he always does.

Another thing we gave up to afford children was going to the movies.  What we didn’t know at the time was that saving them for vacation helps Lucas, because it gives him a little bit of “movietime” without him being obsessed by it.  We saw “The Simpson’s Movie”, which he throughly enjoyed.

Our campground also offers nightly busses to take campers to either the Crazy Horse memorial or Mt. Rushmore.  We visited Crazy Horse tonight to see the new laser light show we had heard about.

We toured the spacious facilities, seeing the short movie about the making of this enormous monument to the American Indian, and visted the museum and gift shops.  Then we found a seat on the veranda, and prepared to be amazed.

We weren’t.  Amazed, that is.

This place has always held a special place in our hearts,  as I’m sure it does for most people who have seen learned about Crazy Hourse and how this mountain came to hold his likeness.  It just didn’t seem the right setting for brightly colored, neon looking lights shooting across the sky, prefaced by several ads for the sponsors fo the show.

We’ll come back during the day sometime, when all the native American artists and craftsmen are here.  Maybe that will help us feel back in tune with the place.

We got to our “base camp” in the Black Hills today, where we’ll stay for the next week.  Or campground is above Mt. Rushmore, and we always get the exact, same site so that Lucas feels a sense of sameness and comfort there. (It’s important when traveling with autism to have some routines that offer that sense of sameness, and this is one of  ours.)

Our campsite is on the edge of a very large campground.  This place is incredible!  It has a heated pool and hot tub, a water park and water slide, mini golf, horseback riding, and you can rent recumbent bicycles.

There’s live entertainment nightly at the outdoor stage (a cowboy band, native american dancers, or a family friendly comedy act), and a movie in the rec hall each night, too.  They even offer an “all you cna eat” pancake breakfast every morning, which Lucas loves.

We’re surrounded by the pursest mountain air you’ve ever breathed, and thanks to the lack of city lights, on cloudless nights you can actually SEE the Milky Way.  I love getting up around 2 a..m. and just walking.  All is quiet; I can see the stars and smell the pines.   I feel truly alone except for God, and my soul is at peace.

As I said, our campsite is off to the side in this campground.  There are six that are separated from the rest of the campground by a babbling brook, and on the other side of us is the Black Hills National Forest.  We’re somewhat segregated from the hoards of vacationers, but still close enough to enjoy everything.

Lucas helped to set up camp, turning the crank to raise the camper and helping open the windows on it.  He likes the lack of bugs here (I think we’re too high up at 5,000+ ft. above sea level.)

We spent the afternoon visiting Rattlesnake Jakes, a little store that’s Lucas’ favorite place in the Black Hills.  We’ve become friends with the owners, Dallas and Mary Dietrich, and Lucas loves the lifesized figure of Rattlesnake Jake, who “talks” to him, thanks to a microphone manned by Dallas.  Jake has called Lucas by name since the first time he enterd the store, and Lucas gets such a kick out of him!

The Dietrichs introduced us to some shop owners who hadn’t been there last time we visited, and I sold 3 of our LucasWorks Autism Awareness Bracelets to 2 of them, both of whom had a connection autitsm (yes, it’s everwhere these days!)

Evening brought Dad Burgers back at the camp site, and then ghost stories around the campfire, with Lucas telling his version of “the Hook”:

He got the version from that Ernest Goes to Camp movie we saw the other night, and did his best to do it justice.  Of course, we acted terrified!  Again, I can’t help but remember that this is the child who “professionals’ said would never talk…