Days 15, 16 & 17 - Belvidere, Wall, Chamberlain and Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Earthship Le Van Gogh Diary

Days 15, 16 & 17 - Belvidere, Wall, Chamberlain and Sioux Falls, SD

I’m writing this from the KOA just north of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I would have posted sooner except I’m still having problems finding a local signal. Heck, I couldn’t even get a cell phone signal there for a bit. I do really love these out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere places, but I pay the price with no communication ability. Oh, well.

I stayed near Belvidere after leaving Rapid City and lessee, what can I say about the area? Well, it’s as lovely as any place I’ve seen since leaving with long, wide open fields and crops at the harvest stages on both sides. And cattle, cattle everywhere! These don’t look like they might be dairy cattle, more like the raised-for-beef kind. But what do I know about cattle? Oh, about as much as I know about horses, which is squat.

I did see one odd cow-related happening - most of the cows in this field I was passing were lying down and placidly chewing their cud. The others were standing around, hanging out, you know, doing cow things, being cool. But this one cow was sitting on her haunches, just gazing off into the horizon and looking for all the world like a Gary Larson cartoon come to life. I’ve only seen one other cow/bull do this and that was in the movie, “Michael,” with John Travolta as Michael, the Archangel. He had gone head-to-head with a bull and after impact he was lying flat out in the field with a smile on his face and the bull was just sitting there on its haunches and shaking its head. Well, this cow was doing the same only it wasn’t shaking its head - just gazing off into the distance thinking its cow thoughts and feeling mellow. I guess. Are there any cattle experts out there who can tell me how often this happens? Inquiring minds would like to know!

The campground in Belvidere had no shade whatsoever and the high was 80 and I’m so thankful this van has an air conditioner in the back! It gets sweltering in here without it. Ugh! And my hair just doesn’t know what to do. The curl begins to loosen in dry weather but in high (well, it's high to me…) temperatures where I’m sweating and regardless of the humidity in the area, it frizzes. So I’m Miss Frizzball with loose curls and very glad that no one is around to take my picture. And no, I’m not having anyone else take one either. You’ll just have to wait until Georgia when the humidity is higher and my hair is still frizzy but back in its curly stage.

After leaving Kadoka I passed a blitzkrieg of Burma Shave-type signs telling me to come see Wall Drug Store. They advertised free ice water, and so much more stuff you would never expect to see in a drug store that I had to stop off and see what this was all about. It was worth the stop just for the sheer, um, tackiness involved with the whole production.

The story behind this is that the first little bitty Wall Drug Store began in 1939 while the Depression was still doing its best to, well, depress people. The owner, Ted Hustead, a pharmacist, and his wife, Dorothy, and their son, Billy, had just purchased the store and business was slow. Real slow. Although Ted did get some business from the tiny town of Wall (323 people) by filling prescriptions, for the most part people weren’t buying and and Ted and Dorothy were beginning to wonder about the wisdom of owning a store in such an isolated area. Days went by when perhaps one customer came in and there were plenty of days when no one came by.

Well, eventually Dorothy came up with the idea of putting out the Burma-Shave-like signs near the highway that with a little rhyming ditty - Get a soda… Get root beer... Turn next corner... Just as near... Highway 16 & 14... Free Ice Water... Wall Drug.

Ok, so it doesn’t rhyme very well, but it worked. The first day they put out the signs they were deluged with people seeking water, sodas, ice cream cones, directions and some place just to be cool for a bit. They haven’t lacked for business ever since. And they claim to now have over 20,000 customers a day! I can believe it since the parking lot itself rivaled one of the Busch Gardens lots in numbers of slots and number filled. There were lots of places for the big guy RV’s to park but I chose the more humble car lot where I could just pull through when I left. This meant I walked for about ten minutes before I got to the actual, um, selling-to-suckers area. Excuse me, the retail area.

The humble Wall Drug Store had morphed into a giant old-fashioned western town including the buildings with the facade fronts and any kind of crap, I mean, souvenirs that you could ever wish for. They did have an art gallery with some pretty famous artists including N.C. Wyeth (that was kind of weird...), and that was at least one worthy place to visit. And they had the t-shirt shops (note the plural) and the country stores (likewise plural) and a café where I had some pretty darned good cherry pie and, of course, free ice water and $0.05 coffee (I couldn’t find a ‘cent’ symbol). There was more, much more, and I took some pictures of a couple of stuffed ‘wild’ animals, including a 6-foot rabbit (one of Harvey’s cousins?) and a buffalo, both looking like they wondered how the heck they ended up in this circus.

I stopped in a rock shop and found an amethyst crystal who called out to me so I purchased the little guy. I also played with a collection of polished minerals from the area and picked out the ones who asked to be picked and bought a collection for a very low price. I also found a shark’s tooth that wanted to be loved but the bigger fossils of any of the countless found in the Badlands area were beyond my budget. Another time, ok?

I did buy a Pralines ‘n Cream ice cream cone and loved every dripping bit of it. I got back on the road, finally, and drove on to Chamberlain. On the way I saw a metal sculpture of a T-Rex following a human (see photo) and after I left Chamberlain I saw yet another. This one was of a giant head of a steer with very long horns jutting up so that this was the first thing you saw coming over a hill. There was no safe place to pull over and take a photo, alas, so you’ll just have to imagine it. It was huge, I’ll tell you that.

No shade in Chamberlain, either, but the wind was blowing and as the day wound down the breeze actually became a cooling system that helped my little van stay tolerable. And before the dawn came I had to turn on the furnace because it was down to 45 from 80 and I could see Chopper was shivering, even in her warm bed. That’s what it’s been like since I left Rapid City. High temps during the day, low enough to be cold at night. No rain, but clouds everywhere that cover the surrounding fields in the most glorious shadows. The fields change their colors frequently depending on where the clouds drift, the type of crops grown, if any, and how the hills rise and sink on the horizon. The closer I got to Sioux Falls, the more beauty I saw in the close-to-harvesting fields. The colors ranged from grey-brown to green to yellow to gold as the corn and soy beans ripened in uneven waves. I saw other crops that I didn’t recognize that added a deep brown to the mix. If I could reach South Dakota’s web site I could probably find out what this crop is, but for now it’s a beautiful mystery. Until then, I continue to enjoy the colors of autumn in all its brown’s and gold’s and oranges and grays. What a lovely season!

And now I’m in Sioux Falls, or I should say, just north of the city at another KOA. This one has shade, thank you to all the gods! And it’s still warm enough to welcome thoroughly the showers and laundry facilities and the opportunity to plug into electricity so I can use the air conditioner.

Here I turn south on I-29 until I hit an area east of Topeka, Kansas, where I turn east again on I-64 until I hit Lexington, Kentucky. There I turn south on I-75 until it’s time to turn off to Blairsville, Georgia. I was going to keep on going east on I-90 but I need to cut my trip to the shortest time and since I’ll see Friend Mark at Sharon’s house I’ll forego the visit with him in Wisconsin.

As for Sioux Falls, it’s the largest city in South Dakota, which isn’t saying a whole lot considering the population is just above 154,000 people. That’s still a fairly small-sized city to me but for this state, that’s huge! If you like areas with fewer people, this is the state for you! And yes, it’s gorgeous. I think it’s a special kind of person attracted to this area of the nation because there’s still so much of the past here. I passed De Smet, South Dakota, where Laura Ingalls Wilder spent her early life and lord knows, her pa and both she and her husband, Alonzo Wilder, were of the independent types who thrived on being out on their own and as far removed as possible from other people. I would have enjoyed visiting the museum dedicated to Laura and her family but again, that will have to wait until later. Oh, well.

I can still see that even now there are houses few and far between and the land is low and mostly flat with gently rolling hills and soybeans and corn and hay as far as the eye can perceive. Pa was a restless kind of guy as was Laura, and perhaps I share their desire to see new places and explore yet again the next hill over there. Except for the hardships that men and women endured as pioneers in this area (the good old days pretty much sucked as far as hard work went) I would have loved to have been one of the ones who ventured out this way just to see what was there. Considering that my genetic heritage is mostly Gaelic in nature I’m not surprised. Lord knows the Scottish have always been intensely independent and the Irish as stubborn as they come. Not sure how the Welsh and the English are involved with my independent nature since I’ve never desired to own or rule over an area. Just the opposite, actually. Perhaps I have more of the Scotch and Irish in me, then. I wouldn’t be surprised…

Lessons Learned:

That there is an art to dumping your holding tanks.

That I’m getting the hang of it but I’m still far from great.

But I have much, MUCH less spillage than I used to.

And that’s always good, you know.

Observations:

A young mother with four (count them, 4!!!!) boys under the age of 7 came down to have breakfast at the Belvidere KOA. Here they offered All-You-Can-Eat-Pancakes-for-$1.00 breakfasts though anything else you wanted was an additional $2 for each item. One of her boys, the second eldest, was an obvious ADD-sociopath-in-the-making who thrived on tormenting his younger brother. While the poor mother hefted her youngest boy, still a baby in a pack on her back, the second youngest was constantly being abused and taunted by this boy who stared at me without any contrition or concern as I stared back at him with a my worst frown on my face. He simply could care less what I felt about his successful attempts to make his younger brother cry. I said a prayer for this poor young woman who’s husband (I’m assuming there was a husband...?) was no where in sight. If there was, he deserved to rot in hell for making his wife cope with all four with no assistance.

A passing and HUGE motor coach who clearly could care less about costs and any ecological impact of its position on earth passed me and was dragging a Hummer behind it.

By the way, these giant motor coaches come in three different sizes - merely HUGE, ridiculously GIGANTIC, and scarily COLOSSAL. Even the smallest caused me to hold on tightly to the steering wheel as its draft made every effort to blow me off the road.

A soybean field that was truly lovely because part had turned yellow and was almost ready for harvest and parts were still green and the melding of the two was just beautiful!

Snow fences. Have I mentioned snow fences? They are everywhere there is a road to protect from obviously deep snow drifts. I'd really rather not know how deep it gets here. It's obvious from a two-story outhouse I saw as I drove. The top was clearly for the winter time and it was much, much higher than the bottom story.

A large sign proclaiming Olivia's ADULT Supercenter was open for business. This was followed much further down the line by another sign that proclaimed Annabelle's ADULT Supercenter was likewise open for business. Considering that both names end in large-breast-sexy-image-producing vowels, I'm guessing that this is a site I can forego visiting...

Days 13 & 14 - Gillette, WY and Rapid City, SD

Earthship Le Van Gogh Diary

Days 13 & 14 - Gillette, WY and Rapid City, SD

Whoooeee! You can’t turn your head in this area without seeing some kind of natural beauty or some location immersed in history. As I was leaving Gillette I realized I was in Close-Encounters-of-a-Third-Kind territory and I was kind of hoping I’d see my very own spaceship come swooping down from the sky. It didn’t happen, but I saw the turn-off for Devil’s Tower and whimpered a little to myself. Whine. Later, Lea, later.

I also passed through Sundance, yes, the Sundance from whence the Sundance Kid received his name and he and Butch Cassidy and their gang hid out in the Hole-in-the-Wall cave from local (and not-so-local) lawmen. That cave and all the land around it are now a part of privately owned land but the owner will graciously give tours for those who wish. I wished but needed to push on, so I just whimpered a little more and kept my eyes on the road.

And in the little town of Buffalo, there is a really lovely building called the Occidental (“Western”) Hotel which is still in use as such. It was restored in the 1980’s and looks like it most likely did when it was first built in the early 1900’s. Before the building you see today existed came first the original hotel which started with a tent in 1880. This became a log building and didn’t emerge as the brick building you now see until 1901. It’s a pretty famous hotel and hosted the likes of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Teddy Roosevelt, Calamity Jane, “Buffalo Bill” Cody and Owen Wister, author of ‘ The Virginian.” I haven’t read that particular book but I’m told it’s one of the most famous Western novels ever written. I’ll just have to take that on faith.

And then moving on into South Dakota comes the turnoff for Mount Rushmore (whiiinnne) and the Museum of Geology (Sharon in Georgia, you’d love this one!) which I longed to pull off for. All kinds of dinosaurs, and rocks and minerals from the Black Hills area and archaeological sites and, and… everything! I could spend hours exploring this museum and the local digs that are open to viewing for the public. And there’s also the Museum at Black Hills Institute which focuses primarily on fossil hunting and restoration of the dinosaurs they find. You’ll see Stan T. Rex at the museum, a fully restored and assembled skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, and many other kinds of dinosaurs, fossil fishes, reptiles, mammals, birds, and plants and a collection of invertebrates local to the area and meteorites and, and… Well, let’s just say that it’s a good thing I didn’t stop or I’d never make it to Georgia!

And there’s the beauty of the land on both sides of me as I drive. The colors are fantastic! You can’t really tell where one ends and the next one begins because they are all just blurred into each other. But the red of the mountains and the greens and yellows of northeast Wyoming change only a little as you enter South Dakota. There the mountains appear very far off and do look black from a distance; hence, the Black Hills description which is very apt for the view.

And there are the Badlands, an area of incredible geological changes that have resulted in the incredible shapes and colors now visible. The fossil beds are immense and of course there is a museum open to the public (well, let’s hope so!) and a fossil exhibit trail you can walk and lots of educators there to explain the Oligocene era which produced all these beautiful geological formations.

Lord, I could spend six months in this area and just barely dip into the history, culture and geological events that I enjoy so much. And when I come back, I’ll pretty much just camp out in the area for the non-snow months and explore to my heart’s content. Yippee! And that’s just this area! Throughout America there are natural beauties, and geological cultural history settings that I find so fascinating. If I’m bored at all it will be my own danged fault.

To segue into a different subject, I am still having difficulty picking up a wireless signal. Here in Rapid City I can’t even get a cell phone signal. Perhaps it’s just AT&T, with whom I have my account. (Actually, I met another man yesterday who likewise has AT&T and has problems logging on and using his cell phone, so I’m not alone.) And even if I do pick up a signal and even though it says the signal is strong, I frequently can’t access either Blogspot.com or Yahoo or Facebook so I’m simply not available to reach at certain times. My apologies for seeming to be just lazy about posting, but I’m writing as I go and uploading as I can.

Anyway, I’d better quit writing about the area before I just abandon my trip to Georgia and just camp out until the snow starts to fly.

Lessons Learned:

That Chopper likes cashews.

That is, she likes to lick them.

So I share.

That last night I didn’t have to turn on the furnace for the first time.

That I did have the air conditioner cranked from the time I hooked up until bedtime.

That this will likely continue as I head further south.

I’m not sure which is better - hot or cold.

Both have their goods and not-so-goods.

Oh, well.

That I actually passed someone on the highway yesterday!

That I’m not the slowest driver on I-90.

That my arms and hands ache from wrestling the steering wheel during gusty winds from Sheridan to Gillette.

That the topical ointment I bought to help relieve muscle pain doesn’t work worth a darn.

Ow.

Observations:

Three deer, two skunks and numerous unrecognizable heaps on the ground from being hit by cars. Sad.

Very alive antelope grazing right inside the town of Gillette on a grassy common.

A scattering of horses, possibly six in all, that were quite lovely. I asked a local man if those were Palomino’s and from my description, brown spots on white, he said yes. Only out here they were called “Painted” horses. Friend Jeanne, you’re the horse whisperer. Perhaps you can shed more enlightenment regarding these beautiful animals!

The same friend, Jeanne, also informed me that a pirogue is a hallowed out tree used for a canoe, which greatly clarifies why an area out west would be called Pirogue Hill. I was having a difficult time reconciling Italian potato-based dumplings with the local history. Since I more often than not can’t get an online signal to check this out for myself, I appreciate the input from friends.