It's day 2 of our Great American Road Trip to Mount Rushmore.
We got up relatively early and hit the road for Rapid City, SD. The landscape was much more what I was expecting for this leg of the trip: flat, dry, and dotted with signs for roadside attractions. It felt like we were seeing signs for "Wall Drug" at least once a mile.
"Fresh, Homemade Donuts at WALL DRUG!"
"Refreshing Tonics at WALL DRUG!"
"Free Ice Water at WALL DRUG!"
Usually, the sign featured a cartoon of an old-timey prospector. We didn't really know what Wall Drug was, and we all laughed at their hopeless attempts to get us to stop.
One of us in the car, however, fell susceptible to one set of signs. Lorenz became obsessed with the prospect of stopping at the Corn Palace. I still don't really know what The Corn Palace is, other than a giant building made out of corn? What else could it be? Luckily, this roadside attraction came early enough in the trip that we all laughed at Lorenz for falling for the advertising and kept on trekking.
The next set of signs was for Prairie Dog Town. We laughed. Until we saw the sign that said "World's Largest Prairie Dog!" And then Sis insisted that we stop. David looked at the map and decided that we could make a slight detour on our way to the Badlands to stop at Prairie Dog Town to see The World's Largest Prairie Dog. It turns out that the The World's Largest Prairie Dog is made of concrete (sad trombone sound). However, I think we all had this moment of "Yes. We fell for the sign, thinking we were going to see an abnormally large prairie dog sitting on a giant cushion eating peanut after peanut." Still, Prairie Dog Town was a lot of fun. We spoiled those prairie dogs rotten with peanuts.
Next up, The Badlands.
I had no idea what to expect. And after several hours of monotonous landscapes, I had kind of given up hope that there would be anything truly beautiful to rise out of the plains. I was totally wrong! I suspect the grandiosity of The Badlands don't really translate to photographs taken with an iPhone or pocket camera. Go see them in person.
We made our first stop right upon entering and were suitably wowed. Then we traveled down to a nearby lodge for lunch. This was Sioux Indian territory, so a lot of the menu items were supposedly based on Sioux food. David and I both got a Sioux Taco - which was like a tostada with a giant unsweetened donut in place of the tortilla. It was a little weird. However, the meat was buffalo and I made up my mind that I was going to order buffalo whenever I felt like while in South Dakota. It was delicious.
Lorenz spilled his drink on himself (I think this was the first of about 100 spills during the trip) so I took that as a chance to take him shopping for a dry shirt. I also got him some rocks. And when I asked him which rocks he wanted, he became all business - carefully selecting 8 perfect rocks. Sis got some root beer candy which ended up being a GREAT idea throughout the rest of the trip (especially as one is trying to forget the flavor of a Sioux taco).
We drove around The Badlands and continued to make stops. There were little 10 minute walks all along the way. There were archeological digs that showed some of the fossils that they found in The Badlands.
The highlight was a longhorn ram that was happily munching grass along the side of the road. We stopped and got within about 30 feet of him.
It was about a half-hour drive from The Badlands to make it back onto the highway. And the junction was at Wall - home to Wall Drug! Sis and I felt like we had seen so many signs for Wall Drug that we'd be FOOLS to pass up the opportunity to stop. I know we all laughed at the signs when we first saw them, but that was hours ago when we were all young and foolish. Everyone else in the car failed to see it that way. Sis and I came up with some lame excuse like needing to get water for everyone and David relented. Sis and I were the only ones that actually went in and we were told that we had to be quick. It was sort of a repeat of The World's Largest Prairie Dog where we walked in and immediately thought "Well...what were we expecting?" The homemade donut stand was closed for the day. The free ice water was...well I never saw the free ice water. I bought a shot glass for David that said "Free Ice Water at Wall Drug!" It had an elk figurine in the middle of the glass that stared at you as you drank. It seemed appropriately tacky. We almost forgot to get bottles of water for everyone but remembered that was our McGuffin for stopping at Wall Drug.
The road to Rapid City now felt interminably long. I think it was only 45 minutes, but we were all ready to get settled into the hotel.
