Buffalo, Black Hills, Badlands & Brotherhood

Four brothers originally from Buffalo, NY, gathered for a weekend in the frontier land of South Dakota in search of, ironically enough, buffalo. We ended up finding a lot more than that.

First an historic backdrop, as these trips don't just appear out of nowhere. Here's an over-simplified view on the collapse of Buffalo, NY and how it ties to this trip:
In 1901 Buffalo, NY, was flying high. It peaked as the 8th largest city in America. The Erie Canal, which connected Buffalo to New York City, turned this small Lake Erie town into a booming trading post, feeding Chicago and the interior of the westward expanding United States. But then came a Presidential assassination of William McKinley at the Buffalo Pan-Am Expo in September of 1901, and the city of Buffalo began its slow, laborious decline. The steel industry helped sustain Buffalo for much of the first half of the 20th Century, but eventually that industry turned to rust. The city of Buffalo has been suffering from an inferiority complex ever since. Jobs, people, and morale have been streaming out of town for most of my life. I should know, I'm one of them. Like its great prairie-beast namesake, Buffalo is on the run and facing extinction. The scales have been tipped. There are probably more former residents of Buffalo, now roaming the country, than there are current residents in the city itself. Self-preservation and renewal are the usual reasons for the mass exodus. My family is a case in point. I have three brothers and a sister, and out of the five of us, only my brother Tim stayed in Buffalo.

As a result of our scattered reality, my siblings and I have recently started a yearly tradition of getting together at some neutral site territory, no spouses, no kids. Two years ago we did California wine tasting. Last year we took on New York, NY, and the Big Apple. This year it was my turn to pick the location, and being the middle child of five I was thinking middle of the road somewhere, or middle of nowhere to be more precise. And I wanted it to tie in to our roots in Buffalo...somehow. So we all flew to Denver and then drove 6 hours due north to the

Black Hills and the Badlands of South Dakota.

My sister couldn't make it this year, so it was just the four brothers on a road trip. Strangely enough, that's a combination that doesn't happen often. We get three of us together a lot, usually me and my older brothers Tom and Tim, but rarely all four of us. Little brother Jon, with his sharp literary senses, was able to make the trip this year after missing it last year. And most exciting, we were visiting a place none of us had ever visited before.

The drive through the southeast corner of Wyoming was marked by an incomparable feeling of vastness. The stark, endless, golden prairie landscape gently rolled by our car windows. Shortly after crossing the South Dakota border, those flat plains gradually yielded to rolling hills dotted with dark green pine trees and jutting rock formations. Before long we were in the middle of the Black Hills, so named for their appearance against the dark blue sunset skies common in this area. By sunrise we were four tourists on our way to Mt. Rushmore. Our first goal was to catch the morning sun when it first shines on those four famous faces looking east. It didn't last very long, but for about 10 golden minutes we saw the faces of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln in all their glory. Visiting a place like this off-season produced an unexpected bonus for us. The parks were empty. Hardly any visitors, and eerily quiet.

Next for us came a drive through Custer State Park. This is, we were foretold, the home where the buffalo roam. With the exception of perhaps the bald eagle, there is no American animal more iconic than the buffalo. It is a uniquely American animal and a symbolic representative of our expansive ideals. And for four brothers from Buffalo, NY, the sight of this animal roaming free on the great frontier promised to be a chill-inducing moment for sure. This was more than just some endangered species to us...this proud, heavy-shouldered, over-burdened, head-hanging, resilient beast of an animal somehow represented our collective upbringing. You see, if you're from Buffalo, no matter where you end up, no matter how hard you try, you always have Buffalo inside you. All the baggage that is Buffalo, NY, goes with you and stays with you forever. Including those 4 Super Bowl losses.

The final leg of our trip took us out of the Black Hills, across another vast prairie, and into the Badlands. This land looks exactly as it is named...rugged, canyon-like, rocky spires that divide the high plains on one side from the low plains on the other. While not everyone would call it "beautiful" scenery, there's no denying how breathtaking and awe-inspiring this landscape is. And once again, so very quiet. Perhaps it's the absence of trees, which contributes to an absence of birds, but standing at the Pinnacle overlook above all the endless jutting spires, I couldn't believe the absolute silence of the place. Only the occasional gentle gust of wind disturbed the silence...and the incessant echoing banter of four brothers on the loose. Nothing that immense should be that quiet. It felt almost unnatural. But what a sight to behold. I could only equate it to the experience of looking out at the skyscrapers of Manhattan from atop the Empire State Building. Hundreds and hundreds of pointy, rocky spires stretched out in front of us like some sort of otherworldly cityscape. Our journey was complete.

And then we headed home. The funny thing, though, amidst all those majestic landscapes, wild animals and national monuments, the one element that impressed me the most was the unbreakable bond of brotherhood. Not all families experience the same kind of unity, but Galucki brothers have an incredible history of togetherness. With three sons of my own, this is a legacy I'm hoping will continue. While the trip didn't feel complete without my sister there with us, I'm sure she'd agree that these opportunities are a once-in-a-lifetime moment.