Road trips and Breakfast conversations

Badlands Inn
Badlands National Park
South Dakota
8.30 a.m (Mountain Time)
31st May 2014

On the first leg of a road trip from Chicago, Illinois to Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming via Wiconsin, Minnesota and South Dakota. In the next ten days we will be in 3 National Parks and would have driven through 7 of the 50 states.

Had heavy duty breakfast conversation with our inn manager Mary Sue and a scientist from Colorado staying in the Badlands Inn with his family consisting of wife, 13 year old daughter and 10 year old son. We talked about systems thinking, design, the shortcomings of science education (around the lack of focus in designing experiments v/s conducting experiments) and the challenges in the wider adoption of systems across contexts. We discussed the lies in school education and the myths syllabuses propagate about history through the free interpretation of the roles of victims, aggressors and conquerors. Phew! We went from systems theories to the subjugation of the American Indian tribes by bible wielding, promise binding men from other lands. She talked about the burden of broken promises and the gift of trinkets that helped vanquish the native settlers. It is amazing how all societies and civilisations face the same challenges in failing to protect the ethnic people in the pursuit of money and the mirage of development.

Mary Sue is an army veteran who spent 8 years in military intelligence mapping North Korea. Her grandfather apparently co drafted the new deal with FDR and her son just returned from serving in Iraq. We talked about the the collective burden of veterans returning from war with wounded bodies and scarred minds and how the price of sending them to war is a price that we as a society pay as a whole. It makes me see India’s response to conflict (which so far has been politically driven inaction) as a better option to mobilising men and machines on the front lines.

An eye for an eye truly makes the whole world blind.

Badlands National Park on an overcast Saturday morning

One of those places where the view point is as picturesque as the view it looks out to

First leg of an epic road trip from Chicago to Yellowstone National Park

The year of the Blue Wooden Horse

2014 is the year of travel for me. Domestic expenses have been shelved. New plants, a coffee table, new linen will all be bought next year or the year after that. This year I will see what I can of the world and my corner of my country. This year I will be the budget traveler without heed to soft beds and sanitized loos. The first trip of the year set the tone for that. A 20km trek to 6702 feet and back for an unfit first timer, reverse bungee-jumped my brain into the uncomfortable and unfamiliar. I took half an hour more than anyone else and almost gave up half way on a trek that was graded moderate to easy. But now I am addicted and I want my next fix.

So, the Russians call 2014  the year of the blue wooden horse. A year they believe will be tempestuous, temperamental and a thrill ride. Make what you will of it. My plan is to travel in a whole new way, push myself beyond safe lines and reach a whole new place at the end of this year.

Images Courtesy Siddarth Murlidharan & Marie Lisa Jose