Sioux me

Well, it was another big day of driving and touring--another 400 miles, give or take. I woke to thunderstorms in Sioux Falls, so I decided to take my time getting ready for the road. An hour after eating breakfast with a gaggle of girl soccer players, I found myself in Mitchell, traipsing around the Corn Palace (that's corn, not porn, Steinberg). It's basically an overgrown high school gym--it has a basketball court and large auditorium seating with a big stage. On the walls are murals made out of, you guessed it, corn cobs. The outside is similarly decorated. Onward and upward--but first a stop to fill the tank. Some very exciting findings at the gas station--the classic double toilet restroom and ammunition for sale on a folding table.

Another few hours later, having declined the pleadings of billboards advertising Dick's "24 hr TOE Service," I found myself at a scenic overlook with views of the Missouri river and some great bridges. South Dakota is not terribly flat--there is some terrain variation that kept me interested. Soon thereafter I took the exit for the Badlands National Park. I drove the 30+ mile scenic loop through the incredible landscape. I took a million pictures. The landscape seemed to come out of nowhere--one second you're in rolling green hills; the next you've dropped into valleys of carved limestone stripes. It was a strange incarnation of the concept of potential--I wonder if those green hills hide similar limestone towers. Kind of reminded me of making molds and casts in grade school art class.

The Badlands loop takes you to Wall, whose Wall Drug has by now been beaten in your mind by hundreds of billboards like "Wall Drug, advertised in Keyna, Africa." I got some butterscotch ice cream at Wall Drug.

On to Mount Rushmore--the town nearby is like a very toned-down Pidgeon Forge. There's a phenomenal information center and viewing pavilion made of granite. The sculpture is pretty stunning--what got me were the eyeballs--the pupils had light reflexes! And a note to others--the mountain is best viewed in the morning--I got the evening sun, which sets behind and to the left of the president-heads, making viewing and photographing tricky.

Next, I headed to the Crazy Horse monument project--an enormous mountain sculpture-in-progress commissioned by the Lakota Nation elders. Started about 60 years ago, it's funded by visitors' fees and private donations--no federal government money. The head of Crazy Horse alone is bigger than all 4 Rushmore heads--and that's only a small part of the planned sculpture. Who knows if it will ever be finished, but if anyone can do it, it seems to be the obsessive family of the sculptor (he had 10 kids).

I closed up the night drving through Wind Cave National Park and saw hundreds of little prairie dogs darting from hole to hole--the terrain looked like a golf course: very close-cropped vegetation. And two scraggly looking bison and herds of deer. Closing the night in Hot Springs, South Dakota. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Miss South Dakota pageant is in town--I've grown tired of wearing my tiara for the last year.