A blog to prove to my mom that I shouldn't be a professional writer

Story:


Motels make it easy to sleep late, so we do. Once we're up we feel it's necessary to move quickly. The Deadwood area has a lot to offer and we're supposed to be there already. Fortunately deadlines don't mean much to also. Also fortunately, Mitchell, the town in which we arose, is home to the Corn Palace. We dawdle there for a while, then decide that breakfast is necessary. Less than a block away is Jitters, where Trefor gets a breakfast burrito and I get pancakes with eggs and bacon (which Trefor eats). We scurry past Uncle Zeke's Jewelry and the Doll Museum to get out, after which we drive for Deadwood with all of our hearts. A few hours out we have passed thousands of billboards and we are intrigued by the ones for a petrified wood garden, so when it comes up, we get off. Trefor picks up a couple rocks for to show his students. We keep going and a few miles more down the road I just have to see the six ton prairie dogg and the prairie dogg farm, so we stop to check them out. Luckily for us, they on the road that leads into the badlands. We cruise the badlands, we get sunburned, we get our hearts broken, and we follow the highway out straight into Wall Drug. Trefor gets a hat. We roll back out with intent to make it to Mt. Rushmore in our brains, but soon stop for gas and are distracted by kids riding bmx bikes. We have to go through Rapid City to get to Rushmore, and Rapid City contains Dinosaur Park, which we are clearly obligated to stop at. It takes longer than we anticipate to get to Rushmore, and we arrive after dark. We both get hats. On the way we noticed an indoor black-light mini-golf course, so we play a round. Trefor wins. Sturgis Bike Rally is on, so we decide it's on, and we go. I get a hat, Trefor gets a shirt. On the way out I get pulled over for crossing the median on the way out of a stop sign. We sleep in the car. In the morning we wake up, freezing cold. We head to Presidents Park, which isn't open yet, so we hang out in Deadwood for a while, then head back and take pictures of all the presidents. We noticed a sign the previous night for "99¢ all you can eat cowboy pancakes". We go to where it pointed us. We arrive fifteen minutes after they stopped serving. We make snacks in the parking lot of the Cosmos Mystery Spot. Then we enjoy the mystery. Currently we are in the car moving toward Montana. We're currently crossing the Wyoming state line.




Glossary:


corn palace: The Corn Palace is cute. They cover a building in corn every year. It serves as the recreational center for the town as well as being a tourist attraction. They started it to prove a point.

jitters: Jitters is a coffee shop and diner. Mostly a coffee shop. The woman who owns it cooked for us, and she made my meal into a big face on my plate. She made the fluffiest pancake I've ever been privileged enough to wrap my maw around. Trefor seemed to enjoy his food also. The owner and her cashier girl were both stupendously friendly and congenial.

petrified wood garden: The man who let us in was very grum. A bunch of things glowed in the dark. It was more interesting than I imagined it would be, and the sheer amount of petrified wood available was impressive.

prairie doggs - The six-ton prairie dogg isn't made of prairie dogg, it's actually made of concrete, so don't let it excite you too much. The actual prairie doggs are wicked cute, and free to look at. We spent a while taking pictures and video. We didn't go inside the store. I bet that made someone sad.

badlands: The badlands are both huge and amazing. We stopped at the first couple places that were set out for us, but maybe we should have paced ourselves. There are a lot of places to stop and get out and look. The heat was unreal. Also there were ostensibly rattle snakes, but we saw none. Everything there is beautiful. We had a brief discussion of taking over a small plateau and declaring independence from the US. There were also two really cute girls in a car that was obviously packed for a road trip, and it seemed for a moment that they were headed in the same direction as us, but when we left the badlands and turned west, they left the badlands and turned east.

wall drug: Convenient that the badlands place you right on top of Wall, because we intended to go here anyway. Wall Drug is a little smaller than I imagined, but still rather large. It sells things. That's mostly it. We got lunch there. Trefor got a buffalo hot dog and I got a grilled cheese and a chocolate milkshake. We both got homemade doughnuts. We picked up a couple supplies. It is worth noting that Wall Drug has bought a few houses in the area and converted them into dormitories, and they bring in people from all over the world to work there for the summer and they put them up in their housing.

bmx kids: There was a tiny open bmx park right next to our gas station. While Trefor was filling up I wandered over and took a few pictures. I talked to one kid, then turned to look at the car and it was gone. I ran towards the gas station in a panic, and Trefor called me from behind, where he was videotaping the kids. It was cute. They were really bad. One of them was riding a little kid bike instead of a bmx bike.

dinosaur park: Dinosaur Park is full of giant, goofy-looking dinosaurs and kids who play on them.

rushmore: Mount Rushmore is awe-inspiring for a few minutes. We got there in the dark and they were doing a service with a lot of talking and a lot of video and it was long and we were afraid that we would have to come back in daylight, but eventually they lit it up and it was really huge. That, I think, it the biggest thing it has going for it, is that it is the biggest thing.

putz 'n glo: Trefor may have beaten me, but I'm still up two to one on mini-golf games.

sturgis: It sure is a bike rally. Lots of bars and places selling Sturgis shirts. In fact, in Wyoming we're still passing places that sell Sturgis shirts. Everyone looks distinctly like a biker. I have serious questions about the biker's sense of style.

get pulled over: I drifted slightly over the median after a stop sign leaving Sturgis where the cops are out in full force. The cop had me come back and sit in the front seat of his car, which was a new experience. Also he asked for my license but not registration or insurance proof. When we got to the car he talked to me for a while about his drug-sniffing dog and asked if we had any drugs in the car and when the last time I used drugs was. Then he wrote me a warning and sent me on my way.

sleep in car: Due to my confidence that there would be biker shanty towns in the area we didn't plan any lodgings in Deadwood. I ended up driving around looking for a place until around two, and then I found a place to pull off out in the woods where everything was so dark and the trees were so tall and the sky was so gorgeous. The car is comfortable to ride in, but not so comfortable to sleep in. Also we left the sunroof open for airflow and it got to be forty degrees, so we were pretty freezing. Not the best sleep I've had, but it wasn't a total failure.

deadwood: Deadwood is totally lame.

presidents park: Presidents Park is a beautiful companion to Rushmore. It's certainly less awe-inspiring, but there are twenty-foot-tall busts of every president, along with boards telling highlights from each's life and career. Of note: the first twenty or so First Ladies got real raw deals.

fail to get pancakes (ft. hays): I'm sad that we didn't make it in time. Unlimited cowboy pancakes for a dollar is possibly the best deal ever. They offered us lunch for four dollars, but it was either a buffalo hot dog or a barbecue sandwich. I don't eat either and Trefor was too sad to.

cosmos: We've been looking forward to hitting some Mystery Spots the whole trip. This was our first. It was grand. Water flowed uphill and balls rolled all over the place and sober bikers pretended to be drunk. There were a few things that we have not yet been able to reason out. Also our tour guide was named Peter and he looked like our friend Jeremy Stamas and he had our sense of humor (hostage! HA!) and he was clearly the best tour guide they had to offer. He says he's only been working there for three and a half months, so probably it's a summer job, but if anyone ever gets to go there they should ask to be in his group. Tell him we sent you.