Well the Corn Palace was...corny. You knew it was coming, don't act surprised. Go ahead let a little laugh out, no one can see. The original Corn Palace started in the early 1900's and after nearly 100 years it still sucks. They spend $100,000 bucks each year to build this thing in bum fuck South Dakota, for no reason but to bring in some tourist. To make it worse the high school has to play their basketball games in this place. If I was a visiting team I wouldn't care if I lost cause these assholes have to play their games in the Corn Palace. I'd lose on purpose just make them feel a little better.
After the Corn Palace we tried to go to the Prehistoric Indian Village hoping to see something cool. We saw a single building on about 2000 sq feet of land, bordered by the town cemetery and a golf course. So much for respecting ancient Indian heritage.
After two dismal failures of sightseeing we continued on down the road on the trail of tears. I got pulled over for doing 82 in a 75. The cop was pretty nice about it and only gave me a warning. But I get the feeling he saw Virginia tags, 2 grungy guys and assumed something bad. He made it a point to ask me if I was carrying drugs and saying he had the right to walk his dog around the car to sniff. I confessed to having my Typhoid and Malaria drugs in the car which probably confused him so he didn't sniff the car.
There was very little to see along the way except the signs for Wall Drug (which we will get to) and 1880's village. To break up the monotony of plains and sky we stopped at 1880's village. I assumed it would be in some small town with food, gas and some other random shops. Silly me, it was quite literally a reconstructed 1880's town in the middle of no where, just off the highway. I can't do it much justice here so go see the pictures. But when their big draw is the horse from Dances with Wolves (which died August of last year) you know it can't be anything great. We took goofy pictures and got out of town headed for the Badlands.
As you get closer to the Badlands the fields give way to grazing plains and rolling hills. On a clear day the surroundings do have a beauty about them and the solitude is relaxing. Entering the Badlands is pretty amazing. The erosion has created some rather amazing landscape that stretches as far as the eye can see. We walked about a mile in to see the full breadth of the landscape. It really was pretty amazing to see and to be standing in the middle of it with the wind blowing hard was a unique experience. Halfway through the park we noticed a small animal run across the road. When I stopped the car we noticed it was prairie dogs and they stretched forever into the distance. It was thousands of them in the fields poking their heads up and running around. Kind of funny to see. Overall a pretty neat park and nowhere near deserving of he name Badlands, unless you tried to live there. Justin behaved himself so I didn't have to leave him there either.
After leaving the Badlands we stopped in Wall, home of Wall Drug. We'd been seeing signs for it over the past 300 miles, reminiscent of South of the Border between NC and SC. And it was equally as bad. All sorts of touristy trap crap not worth the money used to make it. And we couldn't even find the free ice water.
Leaving Wall the landscape drastically changes again as you near Rapid City and the Black Hills. The rolling hills and plains give way to mountains and dark pine trees. We pulled into Keystone for the night, a small town just below Rushmore, quite literally sitting in between the surrounding hills. We loaded up on buffalo prime rib (good) at the local diner and settled in for the night.
South Dakota has proved interesting to say the least, much more so than the initial reaction. A little gimmicky at times but it makes for fun pictures (which we took a ton of) and funny stories. Tomorrow we do Rushmore, Deadwood, and maybe make it to Yellowstone.
