LEFT: A lonely highway near Pierre, South Dakota.
RIGHT: Badlands National Park
LEFT: A lonely highway near Pierre, South Dakota.
RIGHT: Badlands National Park
My main vacation in 1987 was a jaunt through eastern Canada with Margaret and Brian. That trip was over in mid-July, and I spent most of the rest of the summer around Algona, doing (as I frequently told those who asked) "as little as I could get away with". By August things had become quite routine at home, so I made a rather spur-of-the-moment decision to make a weekend getaway to points westward. I packed up a gym bag full of clothes, my trusty Rand-McNally atlas, a Methodist hymnal, a small bit of money, and three books of McDonalds gift certificates I had gotten by complaining about a restaurant in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. It was early morning on Friday, August 14, as my blue Omni pulled away from the apartment building and I headed off on this little escapist excursion.
This was an occasion for truly wandering, and I mad a point of following roads I had not driven before. I took a series of county roads northward through Kossuth County to the Minnesota border. It was cool and foggy as I drove, odd weather for August, but quite pleasant. I wandered past the little village of East Chain and ended up in Fairmont, Minnesota-the next place of size north of Algona. I stopped briefly in Fairmont to exchange some of those McDonalds coupons for a bit of breakfast.
I then headed westward across Minnesota on old highway 16, the road that Interstate 90 replaced. From the interstate southwestern Minnesota is rather dull countryside-eternally flat and rural. I-90 cuts a gash across the prairie, and there's really very little to look at other than the road. Highway 16 (now a county road) is really much more pleasant. The road winds around hills you wouldn't know were there judging from the view from the freeway. I had a nice little drive this morning.
After a couple of hours I re-joined the interstate at the western edge of Minnesota. I drove a few miles westward and stopped at a rest area just inside the state of South Dakota. I picked up some state travel literature there and was soon on my way again. I-90 runs across the north edge of Sioux Falls, a place of 70,00 people that is South Dakota's largest "city". I've visited Sioux Falls a few times before (it's one of the nicest places to shop in this area), so I didn't bother to stop at all now. For the briefest of times the interstate speed limit slows to 55 miles per hour to let you know this is an "urban" area, but soon the limit is 65 again, and the local cars drive closer to 75 the entire distance.
Starting just west of Sioux Falls there is a string of billboards along the interstate that seems to run the entire distance across the state. They are spaced a few hundred yards apart, so just as you finish reading one, there is another to look at. They are mostly for the various attractions in the Black Hills tourist area (petrified forest, reptile gardens, wax museum, etc.), which is still over 300 miles away. The signs are interesting, and they provide a diversion in the rather boring landscape, but their sheer number becomes rather annoying. All of them are right next to the highway, which I thought was illegal. I know about fifteen years ago all the billboards along the freeways in Iowa were moved way back into the cornfields (and many were totally eliminated). That was supposed to be part of a national highway beautification program, a move required to retain our federal highway funds. At about the same time a lot of other states moved their signs, too. Either South Dakota ignored the law and lost their federal funds, or Iowa was sold a bill of goods. Even if we were misinformed, I am glad Iowa moved all the billboards. It really makes things prettier not to have advertising so close to the road.
The scenery here is not terribly interesting, but it is not unattractive either. These are the Great Plains, the American wheat country, and the waves of grain spread to the horizon. They were pale green this time of year, not amber (which they are when mature and dry), and also not the rich dark green you see in the corn and bean fields of Iowa. One thing I've always loved about my home state is how lovely and green everything is. Eastern South Dakota is good farmland, but it has a dull, washed-out color-and often they irrigate to get even that.
The freeway is somewhat interesting here, too. South Dakota is proud to be one of the few states to have all its interstate system completed-which is not really saying all that much, considering there are only two such expressways in the state. In general the interstates have smooth concrete surfaces with rough black-top shoulders and red iron-based asphalt exit ramps. At every exit ramp there is a cattle guard, a group of iron bars set in the road to keep animals from walking on the highway. It sounds like the rumble strip before a stop sign when you drive over them. After most exits there is also a gate that can be closed across the freeway in winter. They get severe blizzards out here on the prairies, and often they will close whole sections of the interstates due to snow.
I turned off the freeway at the city of Mitchell, about 80 miles inside South Dakota. As you enter Mitchell there is a sign saying the place has 11,000 people, but it looks much larger. Western towns do tend to look big beyond their size, but I think it's more than that in Mitchell. The place looks more like Mason City or Fort Dodge, places in the 25,000 range. I know South Dakota has been losing population since the Great Depression; each census shows fewer people than the one before. Mitchell is an old town (its buildings look turn-of-the-century), and I wonder if it hasn't just shrunk a lot from its heyday.
I bought gas in Mitchell and then had a quick look at the town's one and only tourist attraction, the Corn Palace. This old auditorium/gymnasium building is significant because its outside is entirely covered with dried ears of corn. Various colors of "Indian" corn are used to form patterns and pictures, and to spell out words all around the outside of the building. I had last seen this back in elementary school en route to somewhere in the West. That was long enough ago that it was at least minimally interesting to see it again. Mitchell has tried to create some tourist attractions inside the building and elsewhere downtown, but here's not much other than a bunch of gift shops. I looked around a bit, but it seemed to take longer to find a place to park than it did to see the sights of Mitchell.
I exchanged some more gift certificates for lunch and then drove north out of Mitchell on state highway #37, a little-used road that for some reason is four lanes wide. Even if it was four lanes, though, this was not a pleasant road to drive. South Dakota marks its state highways with little green signs showing an outline of the state-a near rectangle with a little tail in the lower right corner. Those green signs are almost invariably a symbol for "bad road". The state's interstates are in reasonably good shape, but its side roads are pathetic. The state highways are very rough blacktop, with no shoulders and occasional gravel breaks. The local roads are dirt, without even a gravel cover. There is occasional construction and maintenance, but far from enough.
This may well be because South Dakota is a very poor state. I was surprised to learn that South Dakota has the distinction of being the poorest state west of the Mississippi, beating out such places as Arkansas, Louisiana, and Idaho. Only three states (Maine, Mississippi, and West Virginia) are poorer overall. In some ways this is nice for a traveler. For instance, South Dakota probably has the cheapest food prices on earth-substantially less than even Iowa. In other ways it is annoying. Gas costs about the same as here in Iowa (which has one of the nation's highest gas taxes), yet the roads are in disrepair. People complain about Iowa's gas tax, but at least when you drive on lovely new freeways and see construction on all the side roads all over the state, you know the money is going somewhere. South Dakota apparently has a similar tax, but they still don't seem to raise enough money to keep the roads in decent shape. Except for the lack of traffic, it's almost like driving in Pennsylvania.
I drove northward to the town of Woonsocket (the only place of that name I'd ever heard of was in Rhode Island), where I turned westward on S.D. #34, which has to be one of the loneliest roads in America. The overgrown cowpath runs all the way from Minnesota to Wyoming, but the only place along it you've ever heard of is the state capital of Pierre. There are no real crops in this area, though you occasionally see some haystacks-and I suppose they must have come from somewhere. It's just mile after mile of grazing land. There are so few trees that at one point I stopped and took a photo of the only tree I could see looking for miles in any direction. It's very dry, and the grass looks quite scraggly. The wind always seems to blow a gale. You can imagine what things were like here in the Dust Bowl days. The highway winds among little hills in this God-forsaken area, with only an occasional car along it. It was extremely hot and dry in this part of the state, but at least my car was air conditioned.
Before long I came to the Crow Creek Indian Reservation. Rather surprisingly the reservation looked nicer than the land around it. As with all reservations, the Indians were hardly given prize land. This particular claim, though, is right along the Missouri River, and the Indians have used that water to heavily irrigate fields of corn and wheat. There are new pre-fab homes all over the reservation, plus new churches and schools. It looked substantially nicer than the run-down mobile homes I generally think of on Indian reservations.
I was surprised and interested to learn that there is a larger percentage of Indians in South Dakota than in any other state-even Alaska. Almost half of South Dakotans are officially classed as "Native American", meaning they are of recent enough Indian descent to care about it. There are huge reservations in South Dakota, covering almost a fourth of the state. Most Indians, however, live outside the reservations-particularly around Rapid City and Pierre. I can't say I was overwhelmed by the number of Indians in South Dakota, but I will say I saw more Indian people in South Dakota than I am normally used to seeing. What I didn't see was minority people of other races; there are almost no blacks, Asians, or Hispanics in South Dakota.
It was late afternoon when I made it to Pierre (pronounced PEER), which ranks second only to Montpelier as America's smallest state capital. Pierre is the only place of more than a few hundred people in central South Dakota, so it was the obvious place to stop for the night. I found a brand new Motel 6 and checked in. I rested a bit in the air conditioned motel room and then set out on foot to explore things in Pierre.
Were it not exactly in the center of the state, Pierre would probably not have become the state capital. Had it not become the state capital, Pierre probably would not have amounted to anything at all. Even as it is, Pierre is a very artificial city that doesn't really seem to belong in the midst of this dry wasteland. The new part of the city reminded me of some Canadian cities that have literally risen from nothing in the middle of the forest. The new part of Pierre is a pleasant, modern city with luxurious lawns; but the hot, dry air still gags you, and you still see weeds with needly spines wherever the sprinkler systems have missed. The older part is more established, but it is rather junky-with a lot of closed stores and a lot of drunks in doorways.
I walked out to a small shopping mall at the east end of the city and strolled down an old, shady street that led out to a motel where Steve and I had stayed a year ago on the way back from the world's fair. I had dinner at a Happy Chef downtown and then walked back to the motel. It was getting late, and all the teenagers were out cruising as I walked back. I do wonder how much gas we could save if our country raised the driving age to 18 or 21. Back at the motel I watched some TV, read a while, and fell asleep.
I slept very well last night and got up quite early (5:30) this morning. I showered and then took a little morning stroll through the area near the motel. Like most businesses in Pierre, the Motel 6 was close to downtown. The state capitol was only three blocks away, so I walked over there and strolled around the grounds. The capitol is a small, unimposing, grey building overshadowed by other government buildings. You wouldn't know it was the capitol, save a tiny dome on top. Its grounds are lovely, though. It's all one big park-like area, centered on an artificial lake. Here and there are monuments to various heroes of South Dakota history, the most interesting of which is called the "Flaming Fountain". This very modernistic fountain, dedicated to the war dead, spews natural gas as well as water. While its water cascades. the gas burns at the side, providing a blue and orange background for the fountain. It's both pretty and interesting.
The sky was spectacular this morning-intensely blue with ominous clouds in every shade of grey. Cracks in the clouds bathed the whole city in an eerie orange light. It had rained during the night, and more rain was clearly on the way, but the sky ahead of the front was really beautiful. I took some pictures of the capitol with the sky above it that I think are some of the best photographs I have ever taken.
It was barely six o'clock when I left the motel. I stopped at a Hardees for a quick breakfast and then crossed the wide Missouri (which isn't terribly wide here, just south of a major dam) to the town of Fort Pierre-South Dakota's first white settlement. Oddly, today Fort Pierre is almost entirely Indian, and it's really a very junky looking town-a mixture of run-down houses with junk in the yards and pre-fab metal commercial buildings. A twisty little road leads up to the top of a hill overlooking Fort Pierre where a monument commemorates the original settlement. Unfortunately today the monument seems to have become a hang-out for the youth of the area. It is littered with beer cans and cigarette butts, and the commemorative plaque is covered with graffiti. I stopped only briefly there and was again on my way.
I changed my watch to Mountain time and then headed westward on U.S. 14, which parallels the first railroad all the way across South Dakota. In Laura Ingalls Wilder's books By the Shores of Silver Lake and The Long Winter, you can read about the construction of the railroad-apparently the Union Pacific. In many ways the railroad still seems busier and more important than the highway beside it. It certainly is better maintained. The country here is even more remote than the area east of Pierre; I saw no more than half a dozen cars in nearly a hundred miles. It rained as I drove, and the rain was my companion on a very lonely drive.
It was still quite early when I re-joined Interstate 90 south of the town of Phillip. I drove west for twelve miles to the next exit and turned off to the "town" of Cactus Flats. Just south of this town is a restored pioneer homestead, which I stopped briefly to see. It's really rather interesting, even though it's run by a private entrepreneur. They have a part-sod claim shanty and assorted out buildings with furnishings from around 1910, the era when this part of South Dakota was settled. It startled me to think of homesteading in the twentieth century, but when you think that the first settlers in South Dakota didn't come until the 1880s, it's a little easier to believe. None of the homesteads in this area lasted long, either. It was simply to dry to make a go of farming, so the people either found some other way to earn a living or they moved out. Today this lone remnant has become quite a tourist attraction. Judging by the people that were there when I was, I'd judge they must get several hundred visitors a day paying $5 a head to see the place.
The homestead is just outside the entrance to Badlands National Park. I remember visiting the Badlands over a decade ago on our way out to Seattle. I can't remember a lot of specifics of that trip, except that it was horribly windy. I really enjoyed re-visiting the Badlands. It was worth far more than the $3 entrance fee they charge, and now that I live relatively close (no more than a day away) I will probably go back there again.
The badlands are striking, intricate rock formations formed millions of years ago by erosion. They have been described as looking like a castle, and you could imagine that looking at the ornate complexity of the place. Really though it looks more like mile after mile of giant stalagmites without a cave. Everything is brilliantly colored in red and orange and white, and almost no plants grow to disturb the majesty of the rocks. I didn't remember the place being as pretty as it is; it really is quite impressive.
I also didn't remember there being trails that allow you to walk right out on the badlands themselves. I followed several of these, some easy and some quite rugged, and was delighted to see the beautiful towers of stone close up. I got a bit thirsty in the dry heat, but the view made it worthwhile. I also went quickly through the park museum and made the car look of the main features of the park. I didn't spend a huge amount of time in the park, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
At the west end of the park is the town of Wall, which can only be described as the definitive tourist trap. Wall has three exits from Interstate 90, even though less than a thousand people live there. Virtually everyone who lives in Wall works at one of the countless motels or restaurants that make the place look like the Coralville of South Dakota ... or they work at the town's main business and tourist attraction, Wall Drug. Wall Drug is a monument to the value of advertising. When the local drug store was about to go under in the 1930s, they placed signs along the highway advertising free ice water at their soda fountain. In those days, before the age of air-conditioned cars, hundreds of passersby saw the signs and stopped for relief from the hot, dry weather. The store prospered and expanded, always keeping and increasing its advertising. Today the store covers a whole city block and is more a shopping center than a pharmacy. They give visitors free signs, and they themselves put up signs along highways in South Dakota and elsewhere. There are supposedly Wall Drug signs in all fifty states and on every continent (even Antarctica). They are apparently quite effective; the place supposedly welcomes almost a million customers each year. I planned to join them, but I couldn't find anywhere to park near Wall Drug. I did buy gas in Wall, though, and then I got back on the freeway and headed westward.
Within an hour I came to Rapid City, the community of 50,000 that was nearly destroyed in a flood fifteen years ago. It is also a big tourist town, the service center for the Black Hills region. I tried to find a budget motel here and had to try three places before I finally found a room at the local Super 8 (at a pricey $40 a night). The room was pleasant, but it was definitely not worth its high-season price.
It was mid-afternoon when I got to Rapid City, and I figured it was pointless to just kill time at the motel. So I bought some snack food and set off again. I followed Interstate 90 westward through the beautiful Black Hills country and on into Wyoming (which seems to maintain its roads better than South Dakota). About twenty miles into Wyoming I came to the town of Sundance, where I turned off and again followed U.S. 14. I drove northwestward and eventually came to Devil's Tower National Monument, the first land in America to be set aside for preservation. Devil's Tower is an enormous column of granite that rises far above the surrounding country. Apparently it was the setting for the motion picture Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I didn't see that movie, but I was able to have my own encounter with Devil's Tower.
It costs $1 to enter the monument. From the entrance a twisty little road winds rather steeply up the mountain that is the base of the tower. It's pretty forest country here, a pleasant little drive. There is a small museum at the top of the mountain, with trails going off in all directions. There are three main trails, making concentric circles around the tower. I first hiked the middle one, which is a pleasant walk through the woods with occasional views of the monument. Then I followed the "Red Beds" trail, the furthest and longest of the paths. You walk abruptly down to start this path, and then follow a ring trail around the dry base of the mountain. There are interesting features like a prairie dog town and the remains of lava flows along this trail, but it is quite rugged and steep. Finally I followed the main trail, the paved circular walk at the top of the mountain that follows the base of the tower itself. (It's also possible to climb the tower, but that wasn't for me.) This last walk was full of tourists, which made it the least enjoyable of the three. It also started raining, so I finished the loop quite quickly. All together I walked nearly ten miles just at Devil's Tower, plus nearly that much at the Badlands. Needless to say, my legs were tired as I trudged back to the car.
I should have followed I-90 back to South Dakota, but for variety I took Wyoming highway #24, a blacktop that weaved through some lovely valley with tall mountains on either side. It was a lovely drive (this part of Wyoming is far nicer than any other I have ever been in), but suddenly the sky opened up and the highway nearly became a river itself. It was almost impossible to see, even with the windshield wipers on high speed, and the road was build so the water ran to the center rather than draining off into the ditches. It was very slow going.
Things changed quickly in South Dakota. The highway became #34, the mountains disappeared and farmland took their place, and the rain stopped just as I got to the town of Belle Fourche.
I was pleased to have a break from the weather, so I decided to do a bit more exploring. A road called Highway 14-A (i.e., old highway 14) leads through the Black Hills as an alternative to the interstate. I decided to head southward from the town of Spearfish on 14-A. This started out as a pleasant enough drive, but it quickly became a nightmare. The road makes hairpin turn after hairpin turn, often without any warning signs. There are no shoulders, and beside you is either a wall of trees or a sharp drop-off into the valley below. It soon became dark, and then the rain started again. I am sure this country is lovely in the daytime. At night, in the rain, I was frankly scared of it. It really did not seem safe under these conditions, but after starting I had very little other choice. I kept winding my way, inching toward Rapid City.
After over an hour I had made my way twenty-six miles to the gold-mining town of Lead (pronounced LEED). From here on it is very urban back to the interstate. It was almost another hour, though, before I finally got back to the motel in Rapid City. I bought some dinner at a nearby Wendy's, watched a bit of television, and then went to bed.
I slept a bit later this morning, but it was still fairly early when I left the motel. I drove through Rapid City, really quite a dumpy little city, and had breakfast at a Perkin's restaurant at the south end of the city. I purposely ordered a large breakfast, trying to get a large enough bill that I could put it on my credit card. When it came time to pay the check, the hostess told me, "We can't take credit cards; the machine is at our other location." I've never heard of a chain restaurant not taking credit cards before; I wonder what they would have done if I hadn't had cash. As it was I had very little cash on me, and I felt like paying the woman with the McDonalds gift certificates. I did dig up enough money, though, and then went out southward.
U.S. 16 leads southwest from Rapid City, past all the tacky tourist attractions and on into the Black Hills. I drove past hundreds of pseudo-attractions-like Fred Flintstoneland and the miraculous Cosmos-before finally getting to the Black Hills' real attraction, Mount Rushmore. Strangely enough, there is no charge to visit Mount Rushmore. At the entrance a man greeted me and directed me to one of countless parking lots. The base of Mount Rushmore is a massive set of terraced parking lots climbing up the mountain, nearly the engineering feat of the monument. Once you get past that, though, the park is really quite attractive. The Presidential faces are set in a lovely pine forest, and a trail lined with America's state flags leads to the viewing area. I gawked at the monument for a while, and also stopped in briefly to overhear a church service being held in the park's amphitheatre. It really doesn't take long to see everything at Mount Rushmore, though, so I was on my way again soon.
I followed US #385 south from Mount Rushmore, which wound past various other commercial attractions before dumping out into Wind Cave National Park. The primary purpose of this park is to preserve one of America's largest caves, but on top of all that is some pretty grassland that feeds a herd of buffalo. It costs money to visit the cave itself (not to mention a long wait for the two-hour tours), but the museum and the buffalo were free. I browsed through the museum and walked a couple of above-ground trails before heading off again.
I drove southward a few miles to the town of Hot Springs and then turned north again on state road #79. This highway runs along the eastern edge of the Black Hills, with mountains to the left and rangeland to the right. It was a short hour's drive back to Rapid City. I had a late lunch at a Taco John's and then set out eastward on highway #44.
Highway #44 was under construction in Rapid City, and it took nearly forty-five minutes just to get out of town. There was also some bicycle event going on today. I passed over a hundred cyclists riding along the road east of Rapid City. I waved at many of them, and they seemed quite a friendly bunch too. I hate to think how miserable it must have been riding across the hot, barren road. I felt almost guilty with my air-conditioning.
After about another hour I came to the "town" of Scenic, which is little more than a house and a run-down gas station. I had so enjoyed the Badlands yesterday that I decided to se some more of the place today. I turned north here onto a county road (marked with the same blue signs county roads have in Iowa) that leads to the western part of Badlands National Park. This is a 25-mile-long gravel road, and it's not in very good shape. It was a dusty drive on a very rough road, but in retrospect it was worth it. This part of the park is mainly a wildlife preserve. There are only a few badland formations, and they are quite tiny. What was interesting, though, was a huge herd of buffalo that I drove right through on this road. There were buffalo on both sides of the road, and also on the road itself. My car seemed very small indeed compared to the massive beasts, but it was great fun to see them so close up. I felt as if I were on safari.
I drove back through the main part of the park and re-hiked a few of the trails. Then I took highway #44 back west (through another thunderstorm) to Scenic. From here another funny little road leads to the so-called "South Unit" of Badlands National Park, as well as to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The road was managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which has to be the only agency that makes the South Dakota Highway Department look good. This twisty road was supposed to be paved, but the "pavement" consisted of heavily oiled gravel with sharp drop-offs on both sides. The Indians whizzed down this road at breakneck speed, but I felt dangerous traveling 45. For some reason my air conditioning was not working properly, and it was a very hot, dusty drive.
The scenery here is some of the ugliest in America-miles and miles of barren white hills. Weeds don't even grow here. Occasionally there are small "badland-ettes", but I can't really say they are enough reason to have annexed this part of the park. I did find out a bit more about it when I stopped at the so-called "visitor's center" for the South Unit, though.
The visitor's center is a small pre-fab building that looks like the mobile classrooms I attended at Lincoln School. Inside there is almost nothing relating to the geology or wildlife of the park. Instead this part of the park focuses on the lifestyle of the Sioux Indians, the people who inhabit the Pine Ridge reservation. There are displays giving the history of the people and examples of traditional shelter and clothing of the Sioux. It didn't take too long to see the place, but it was not entirely uninteresting.
I was intrigued to see an entire busload of European students at the southern visitor's center. What they were doing in this remote location, I have no idea, but there they were. The students themselves, probably thirty of them, were sitting on the steps of the visitor's center smoking and drinking pop. One of them was having his picture taken beside an American flag with the God-forsaken scenery in the background.
The Indian road continued southward across the reservation. The land here is extremely desolate, but the communities (with names like "Porcupine") seem quite nice. There are lovely new pre-fab homes, schools, and community centers, as well as lovely old mission churches. Only the business areas are skuzzy-with run-down bars and groceries and lots of broken windows. The rural areas are also very ugly. Not only is the landscape unpleasant, but he road is lined with litter. Most of South Dakota seemed to have more litter than it really should have, but the reservation had even more than the rest of the state.
At the south end of the reservation is Wounded Knee, where a small sign full of bullet holes and graffiti commemorates the Wounded Knee Massacre. People near the sign sell refreshments and trinkets. I stopped long enough to read the sign, but I didn't buy anything.
Just south of Wounded Knee I turned onto U.S. highway #18, the same road that goes through Algona (it ends up at Lusk, Wyoming). I headed eastward across some of the most barren country I have ever seen. There are long, long stretches of lonely plains with no crops and only a few cattle. This is extremely dry country, and also very remote. It was again a very lonely drive, and I sang hymns to occupy my time. One hymn, based on a reading from Habakkuk, seemed particularly appropriate in this country:
|
Sometimes a light surprises
In holy contemplation |
It may bring with it nothing,
Though vine nor fig tree neither |
I drove onward through the Pine Ridge reservation (co-extensive with Shannon County), through Bennett County, and into the Rosebud reservation (the same as Todd County). The Rosebud reservation is supposed to be the single poorest place in America, but it looked almost identical to the other reservation. I assume all the new pre-fab homes are provided by government welfare people, but it certainly puts a different face on poverty than I've seen anywhere else.
I kept on driving and driving on highway 18. It was well past time to stop for the evening, but there was nowhere to stop. Most of the town simply had no motels, and those motels there were always seemed to be full. Where they get tourists to fill the rooms on this desolate road, I don't know; I think they may be truck drivers. At any rate, there seemed to be nowhere for me to stay.
Finally I came to the town of Winner, which with 3000 people is the largest place in south-central South Dakota. I found a room in a little "ma-and-pa" motel (for $15 a night). I had dinner at another Taco John's and settled in for the night. Soon I found out why the place cost so little. It was invaded with mosquitoes. After being buzzed and bitten half the night, I finally turned on the television across the room. The light from the TV attracted the bugs, so more of them stayed away from me. Why the motel couldn't afford some insecticide, I don't know, but it made for a most unpleasant night.
The bugs woke me up very early this morning. In the bathroom I realized the mosquitoes seemed to fly up from the shower drain. That made me decide to pass on a shower. Instead I just went on my way early.
I bought gas at a truck stop in Winner and headed eastward on highway 18. Winner is right on the border line between the Mountain and Central time zones, and it is also very much on the border between the agricultural Midwest and the rangeland of the West. While everything looked barren and desolate yesterday, today I drove through prosperous fields of wheat and corn. Before too long I again crossed the Missouri, this time on a three-mile bridge right on the Nebraska border. I turned off highway 18 (which angles quite far north) just east of Lake Andes and followed state road #50 eastward across the extreme southern end of the state. I stopped briefly for breakfast in Yankton, where I spent the last of the McDonalds gift certificates, and then drove on east tot the college town of Vermillion-home of the Dakota Dome, the tiny fabric-topped stadium on which Iowa's UNI-Dome was modeled. Before long I crossed the Big Sioux River to re-enter Iowa near the town of Akron. I drove back through the lush green farmland, arriving home early in the afternoon. This was a very pleasant end to a very pleasant weekend.
--2004 David M. Burrow
The background music on this page is "America the Beautiful," the song which should be our National Anthem.