Being the innovative genius that I am, I discovered that instead of waiting until getting to hotel to write up the blog when I am dead tired, I could just write it and save it to a Microsoft word document and then copy and paste it. (Cue up real men of genius song here)
So today’s journey brought us to Wall Drug in Wall, South Dakota and to Mt. Rushmore in Rushmore, South Dakota. I had never really heard of Wall Drug before and didn’t know exactly what to expect. It was basically a giant drug store that had just expanded into a bunch of different souvenir shops and a café and the likes. It was kind of neat walking around – it had a real old feel to it. It was also cool because one of the things about Wall Drug is that it advertises all over the world and lists how far that particular location is from Wall Drug in South Dakota. For example, there were pictures sent in from people in Russia, the North and South Poles and from random famous people at different locations in the world and USA. Patrick Ewing was in one of the pictures and a bunch of different politicians as well.
At Wall Drug we stopped at a café across the street called “The Badlands Bar” or something to that extent. There, I sampled a Buffalo burger. I wasn’t too impressed – the burger was cooked too much for my palate. But then again, maybe that was because that’s how you have to cook a Buffalo burger or else you get Buffalo flu or something like that. It did taste a little bit different than a regular hamburger, although it’s kind of hard to explain. I think I would like to sample another Buffalo burger from an actual restaurant sometime.
On the topic of food, since being in this Wisconsin/Iowa/South Dakota/Missouri area, I have sampled a couple of different milkshakes. I am a milkshake aficionado – by far my favorite desert. Apparently here in the Midwest, they don’t believe in being able to drink their milkshakes. I’ve had to eat both of them with a spoon. Now, I’m not going to complain just because the ice cream itself was so delicious. However, I prefer my milkshakes drinkable. They should develop a new kind of drinkable dessert. Since Congress likes to get involved in everything else from the MLB to College Football, maybe we could spare a couple of the lower ranking Senators to form the milkshake Committee. I would support my tax dollars going to this committee to provide these good Midwesterners with a tasty, ice-creamy, drinkable treat.
Mt. Rushmore was the next stop and I was a little under whelmed at first, to be honest. I kind of just assumed that it was going to be bigger and we would be able to walk really close and be nearly face level to it. Alas, I was mistaken. Don’t get me wrong – it is still an incredibly majestic sight to behold, but I just wanted to be closer and get to pet George, Tommy, Teddy and Abe. We stayed there for maybe an hour or so, walked a trail they had and watched a mini-video about the sculpting of the monument.
We are currently en route to find a place to stay for the night near Yellowstone Park. It was kind of interesting to note the differences between South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. South Dakota was all into the whole Sturgis scene and wearing leather and being the “Badlands” people. There were lots of Harley-Davidson memorabilia around us. The land along the road also seemed a bit more farmland and in use in some sort of agricultural way.
Wyoming is definitely more of a cowboy state. Just looking at the land through Wyoming, it seemed like it was all ranches with animals roaming the hillsides. I could just picture cowboys on horses with their 10-gallon hats and lassos. I never really got to notice the people though so I couldn’t compare them with the Bikers of South Dakota.
Montana is just a bunch of open grass and nothingness. It’s very beautiful, but not a whole lot out here. The sun setting on the hills was really gorgeous, although the clouds were obscuring it for the most part, but I used my imagination and saw a great sunset. I could still see the different shades of pink that were emanating from the sun’s rays so I guess that was enough.
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