Roadie Day 2: The Open Range

I don't know how the West was this big secret that I knew nothing about for almost 26 years, but am I ever trying to make up for lost time. After another day of blue skies, rusted trucks, and several more species of insects going extinct at the hands of my car's grill...I'd say it's time for a recap.

Where the heck is Wall Drug?

As the bumper stickers suggest, Wall, SD (and more famously, it's drug store) is a place you either know about or you don't. After arriving too late last night, I decided to stop by this morning for some breakfast and to see what exactly made this such a well-known part of the American travel landscape. Wall itself is nothing more than a few gas stations and a water tower, until you turn down Main Street and suddenly find yourself in the middle of the Wisconsin Dells. I got there around 9:15AM on a random Thursday morning, and was immediately met with the realization that there was absolutely nowhere to park, even though the entire stretch of Main Street was more parking lot than road. Luckily a car pulled out just as I was driving by, and I scored a choice spot right in front of the Wall Drug Store. 

I think if you rearrange the letters it spells "tourist trap"

I really won't go into it too much, because it's basically just a drug store with a cafe and a bunch of gift shops attached to it. I'm pretty sure it all started because after 300 miles of nothing on the South Dakota highway, people were willing to stop anywhere. Still worth seeing though, and I scored a sweet bumper sticker along with a dynamite plate of french toast and eggs, and with me, that's always a win.


The Hills Have Eyes

It's funny to have gone through life with perceptions on things like the Badlands and Wall Drug, hearing about them, seeing pictures, whatever it might be, and then you actually see them and it's nothing like you imagined. Nowhere is that a truer statement than when it comes to Mt. Rushmore. I don't really know what I was expecting exactly, but it certianly wasn't a 30 mile drive winding through the beautiful Black Hills Forest, only to suddenly come through a clearing and find myself face to face with one of the most impressive man-made creations I've ever seen.

It's amazing what TNT and 14 years can accomplish. 

The Last Best Place

If you're wondering why I cruised through the morning events, even something as iconic as Mt. Rushmore, it's because really all I want to do is write about my drive through Montana. After leaving the Black Hills, and briefly cutting through the corner of Wyoming for about 30 miles, I entered the Great Plains of Montana, and continued my journey westward towards Livingston, MT, my final destination for the night. 

What stood in the way was over 400 miles of the same Western frontier explored by the likes of Lewis and Clark. I almost felt like I was being cheated having to take the road. Montana is the kind of place that, while vast and wide, simply should not be conquered at 75mph. 

The landscape sprawls out ahead of you like the pages of a book, with hills off in the distance preventing you from seeing what's coming in the next chapter until you crest them. It's almost as if an ancient ocean used to roll across the grassy plains, creating wave after wave, crest to trough and back up again, each one about 30 miles apart. The bottom of each wave swallows you up, as if to try and convince you to pull over and stay a while, promising that the beauty you see around you is as good as it gets. 

Resisting the urge, you begin the next climb, the anticipation building as to what you'll see when you reach the top. And what a sight it is. Each crest brings a new surprise, a new land to explore, often times completely different from the one you've just experienced. 

In the blink of an eye, the land goes from barren to forrested, with the Custer National Forest dotting the landscape as if the beginnings of a beard on the jaw of Montana. 

Then come the hills.

At first, they're nothing more than glorified bumps, but soon they're forming pointed peaks and flowing valleys across the landscape. Look closely, and you'll swear you see one that looks like a nose, the next one a chin, almost as if the land were trying to create a face for itself, pushing up from beneath the surface, the soul of the state trying to break free.

Horses, cattle, sheep, even buffalo dot the landscape, members of ranches unseen, bringing life and movement to an otherwise motionless existance. As you realize that this land, these animals, are nothing more than the small number that happen to run up against the roadway, it's almost staggering to consider the amount of life going on unseen, hidden behind the curtain of hills and trees. 

As the sun begins its slow descent to sleep, and you continue to put distance between yourself and the life you used to know, you find yourself cresting a particularly tall "wave". Just as you reach the top, you realize the landscape has once again changed. Those aren't hills ahead of you, those are mountains. At first just peeking up over the top of the hill, you almost get the sense they're forming out of the ground right before your eyes as they come further into view. 

The drive itself is hypnotizing. 

You get lost in the beauty of the landscape, the voice inside your head begging you to pull the car over and take more pictures. Stretch your legs. Get out from behind your dirty windshield and see, without filter, skies so blue you'd swear you were looking into the eyes of God. 

Lost in this hypnosis are thoughts of hunger, thirst, or a need for fuel. When you finally realize the gas light is on, you haven't a clue how long it's been trying to get your attention, so you quickly pull into the next available gas station to refill. Stepping out of the car, you find yourself once again in the middle of Nowhere, USA, a small town with nothing more than a few houses, boarded up general store, rusted playground, and ballfield whose surface is more dirt than grass. It's a town that outsiders would think could use a fresh coat of paint, but it doesn't much care what you think of it. You'll pump your gas, wash your windows, and in a flash, be gone. There will be hardly a sign of your ever having been there besides the tire tracks leading out of town. Yet long after you've gone, there it will remain, having stood the test of time, weather, and bigger cities with flashier lights. It has always, and will always, be exactly what it needs to be for those who live there. 

Home.