Summer 2017 Phoenix, Arizona to Rapid City, South Dakota: first north, then east—that was our route. Our mom, Timmy, and I embarked on a pilgrimage of sorts to visit the Wyoming ranch where my brother worked one summer. He was a “ranch hand” on a farm that mined bentonite (kitty litter stuff), with an 18-mile-long driveway. Neighbors occasionally popped over via private planes—this is the kind of rural you only read about in Little House on the Prairie . We flew into Phoenix,