Don't Stop Now by Julie Halpern

Author:Julie Halpern
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Published: 2011-05-26T16:00:00+00:00

We head south of Wall toward Badlands National Park. “I love how that sounds. Badlands!” Josh yells and flashes the devil sign like we’re at a cheese-rock arena concert.

As we drive into the park, we notice a cavalcade of Corvettes driving in the opposite direction. New ones, classic ones, all driven by older men and women. “Must be some kind of club. Like, retirees who like to drive Corvettes,” I guess. A particularly sleek iridescent purple ’Vette rumbles by.

“Maybe they’re vets who drive ’Vettes? You know, like war veterans?” Josh guesses, with a smile in his eyes at his cleverness.

“Or maybe they’re not war vets. Maybe they’re veterinarians,” I pontificate.

He ignores me. “That’s the life, man. Not having to work, slick car, driving anywhere you want to go.” Josh pulls the Eurosport into a parking spot at a scenic overlook, where more Corvettes are pulling away.

“Isn’t that what you’re doing now? Aside from the slickness of the car. And you didn’t even have to fight in a war—or work with animals—or work at all, for that matter to earn the right to retire,” I point out. Sometimes Josh’s rich-daddy side rears its ugly head, and I have to take him down a notch.

“I’m working.” He’s defensive. “Once I get the band together, write songs, tour. That’s work.”

“Mmmhmmm.” We step out to read some of the park signage that explains the lore of the Badlands, which were so named by the Lakota Indians and early French trappers because of the varied harshness of the landscape, from vast empty prairies to rainbow-colored rock formations that made the land difficult to cross. I look across the endless low hills and imagine a time when roads didn’t cut through nature. The only way from point A to point B was up and down, up and down, slipping on rocks, tasting the dry air. I smack my tongue and am thankful for the cooler of pop in the car.

Josh and I decide to make a plan for the next couple of days, so we don’t miss out on anything we want to see but so we also don’t forget that we have a final destination. That forces me to look at my phone. No reception. Well, then I must not be missing any calls, so there’s no need to feel guilty, I assure myself.

We choose to spend the day driving and hiking around the Badlands, then spend tonight in Deadwood, again because of the name. (Josh claims that it sounds like a “sexy Wild West town. You know, prostitutes were legal there up until the 1980s?” How he knew this charming fact, I have no idea. Nor do I want to.) After that, well, that’s as far as we got with our plan.

I can’t say I’ve ever been a nature girl, but this Badlands place is pretty sweet. It’s not all big trees covering my head, making me wonder what’s dangling above me. The Badlands basically call out, “Don’t bother. You’d never make it across

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