was probably already in use in
Kansas. Though someone should really tidy the place up - these things 
are just lying all over the place.We woke up around 8pm Tuesday night, which was convenient - chances of finding dinner in Mitchell much later than that would've been pretty bleak. After driving all over town (for about 10 minutes) the dinner situation was completely analyzed, and we decided to eat at Chef Paul's, because:
We expected some folksy little steak place, which would've been perfectly acceptable, but instead we were treated to a surprisingly ritzy place, with a wine list, of all things. The interior bore no relation to the drab, uninviting exterior. The place was furnished in a 'Playboy Club' motif - what would've been very spiffy and 'jet-set' 30 years ago, but now was just plain weird. Lots of mirrors, etc. The food was excellent.
Now the plan was to simply score some dinner, take in the no-doubt Exciting Nightlife of Downtown Mitchell, then head back to the motel, sleep until 6am (or so) Wednesday morning, and leave. The next stop on the trip was The Badlands and/or Wall Drug, and since they were only 3 hours away, there wasn't much point in leaving before 6am. We'd Get There Too Early, a phrase that never comes up in our travels.
We went to the bar, which had a foosball table, and a variety of dead animal parts nailed up to their walls. The foosball table was in sad shape - I don't know about the dead animals. Unfortunately, there was no competition to be had, nor any entertainment, so we just went back to the motel.
Didn't sleep, of course. Tried - apparently the local PBS station (the only station that came in acceptably) was running some sort of "Reading Rainbow" marathon. LeVar Burton-mania! Finally gave up trying to sleep around 4am, and hit the road again.
South Dakota's nickname is "The Mount Rushmore
State", which is fine example of good solid Brand
Management. Though personally, I think they had to fall back to
that, because a more-appropriate nickname: "It's Really Flat!" was probably already in use in
Kansas. Though someone should really tidy the place up - these things are just lying all over the place.
Our next stop was Badlands National Park, an aptly-named 244,000-acre slice of hell on earth. Insane people are allowed to hike and camp and do whatever other God-forsaken activities are possible in a 'badlands'. Normal folks like John & I prefer the autobahn approach to sight-seeing. Translated, this means "drive as fast as you can on the 40-mile loop road, stopping only at Official Scenic Vistas for photos, and then back in the car."
The Badlands beckon us on. You can clearly see how the Adequate Lands turn into the
Inadequate Lands... 
and then cruelly turn into Certainly-Not-Good Lands
.
Here's John telling me "We'll
just hike a half-mile into the Badlands. C'mon, it'll be
fun!" 
. If you look closely, you can just
make out a tiny trail 
snaking along the side of these rocks
(look for the vertical marker posts). That's where the fun
was rumored to be located.
I'm thinking, "This'd be a
fine place to die." 
"Would you hurry up,
already?!?" 
"Here's a good place to
stop." 
This panoramic shot is the payoff for
hiking the short trail. Well worth it, but I'd offer two bits of
advice if you ever wish to do this. Start as early as you can. By
the time we were leaving (9am), you could already feel the heat
building up. I'm sure it gets well into the 100s during the
summer months. The other bit of advice: try not to be carrying an
expensive camera - a walking stick will be more useful, and less
likely to make you plummet to your death.
"Now we just descend this
conveniently-placed ladder..." 
In the list of State License-Plate Slogans, there's the
inspirational "Live Free or Die" of New
Hampshire. And then there's Idaho...
Back in the car 
, the way the good Lord intended
people to see the world.
Rocks, and plenty of them, too.
If you want to see more pictures of places you wouldn't want to live, check out rolls 03 and 04.
Next stop, Wall Drug, one of Roadside America's "Seven Wonders of the Road". This place, which originally started out as just a normal drugstore, used the power of marketing to turn itself into a major league tourist-mecca. The trick? Billboards, lots of 'em, for hundreds of miles in all directions. The simple hook: free ice water and 5 cent coffee. It works - the place was crowded.
Of course the simple fact that there's not really any competition hasn't hurt it.
One half of Wall Drug 
. There's another half on the other
side of the street.
When Jackalopes Ruled the Earth
.
On to Mt. Rushmore, by way of Custer State Park. This was a mistake - a seemed-longer-at-the-time 40 mile loop road that promised herds of roaming buffalo, deer and antelope (?) playing, that sort of thing. In all fairness, the skies were not cloudy all day, but really, after a mile or two, you've probably seen all the buffalo you'd ever care to see.
Here I am, completely ignoring
some buffalo 
.
"Is that a burro?"
"Nope, too small, must be a
burrito!" (Keep in mind that we'd been up for a long time,
and it was starting to take its toll.)
A prairie-dog, doing that
prairie-dog thing. 
The Summer White House 
, or so they claim. Ike stayed here,
and you can too!
Eventually got to Mt.
Rushmore. They've had 56 years since it was completed, you'd think they could've swept up
the carvings by now 
. John, the big meanie, made me stand
around in the sun while he took this
picture 
. Apparently, I was not amused. Here's
another shot of the guys 
.
Hey, wait a minute! That's not Teddy Roosevelt 
!
There's something about Mt. Rushmore I just don't get. Here's a national monument that's out in the middle of nowhere, really hard to get to, and when you get right down to it, it doesn't do anything, it just sits there. There's nothing to see at Mt. Rushmore, beyond the obvious. Five minutes and you're done - seen it, done it, never need to come back. Yet, inexplicably, when you get to the top of this mountain, there's this huge three-layer parking garage, and literally thousands of people. They've come by car, by Winnebago, by tour bus, and I don't know why! Hoover Dam, which is much more interesting, and has moving parts and all, didn't have a tenth of this crowd.
Confused, we leave the mountain, heading for Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Didn't make it. After driving 40 miles we were finally in Wyoming, but we were stuck on this extremely straight and boring 2-lane surface road. Apparently the road crews were out erecting SloTime Field Generators throughout the length of this road because, despite the fact that we were moving at a perfectly legal 75mph, somehow the hour we were on the road seemed to last forever. When we got to Lusk, Wyoming (after 70-odd miles, this was the first named place on this road), John and I agreed that we had had quite enough driving for one day, thank you very much, and slept in some scary, non-national-chain, not-a-chain-at-all motel.
