Flying Without a Net

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Returning to Rushmore

IT’S BEEN NEARLY TWENTY YEARS SINCE I first set my eyes on Mt. Rushmore. In Daisy Wademan’s book Remember Who You Are, I tell the story of the memorable trip I took when my daughter Catharine so convincingly asked me to visit the monument in South Dakota. We lived nine hundred miles from the monument. Most important, Catharine wanted to take the Harley-Davidson—she would think up any excuse to get on the back of the bike. Even when I told her how long the trip would take, it didn’t register to an eleven-year-old. We decided to go and left early on an August morning.

The story unfolded in a surprising way. Once we arrived, after two days on the road, we looked up at the four men in stone—George Washington, ...