"Stone-faced and unblinking, four great presidents hold their pose as the cameras click. It’s summer, America is on vacation, and Mt. Rushmore draws the Pace Arrows, Palm Aires, Bounders, and Born Frees from across the land to clog the roads of South Dakota’s Black Hills.
This scenic section of the heartland was beckoning summer visitors long before pavement eased the trip. President Calvin Coolidge and First Lady Grace came by train to Rapid City in 1927 for a three-week getaway. It stretched to three months, so agreeable were the terrain and the temperatures.
Seventy-nine years later, your reporters have arrived, but there’ll be no water slides and Stuckey’s stops for us. No, we’re on a fact-finding mission: Does the traditional American-truck-based SUV have a future? Gas prices are stuck stubbornly at three bucks per gallon, bombs are exploding in the Middle East, the stock market is shuddering, and normally optimistic Americans are having doubts: Is our cheap-fuel way of living coming to an end?"
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