Hot Time in South Dakota
After posting the last entry while enjoying a breve and scones at the Cafe Latte in Rapid City, I headed east on Omaha Street, which soon turned into 44. "East!?! I thought this was Westward Ho." Overall, yes, but in a curlicue fashion. I want to see Minnesota and North Dakota -- partly because I never have, and partly because, once I've been to those two states, I'll only have Alaska left in order to have been in all 50.
Route 44 curves under the south side of Badlands National Park, then, just beyond Interior, joins 240 to go through the Badlands. I turned into the Business District of Interior. It consisted of the little Badlands Grocery, the tiny Interior post office, and an Indian crafts "outlet" -- a small room with a modest inventory of pottery, jewelry, beadwork and T-shirts. I became one of a very elite club to possess an Interior, SD polo shirt.
Immediately after paying my National Parks fee to gain entry to the Badlands, I stopped at the Cedar Pass Lodge for an Indian taco (seasoned buffalo meat, cheese, lettuce and tomato on Indian fry bread). Then into the heat and the barren earthen pyramidal towers of the Badlands. The Badlands join Bryce, Zion, and Ghost Ranch as a huge piece of real estate where geology, erosion, and aridity have collaborated to create an astonishing landscape. It is a photographer's paradise -- every turn providing new layers of weird formations, and lots of turnouts provided to appreciate them. I turned out at each of them and took pictures. To the extent possible, I took pictures from the car, or simply jumped out quickly for a shot, and then jumped back into the air conditioning. The car's thermometer read 104 F. To my amazement, a number of tourists were willing to walk the trails from the turnouts in that heat. There was not a single wisp of cloud to shield the sun and, usually, not a single tree in sight. Often there was prairie on one side of the road, but the absolutely barren badland formations on the other, their buff and red surfaces reflecting back yet more light and heat. The sky was not deep blue, but nearly white at the horizon, making the phrase "white hot" seem appropriate to describe the ambience. (The whiteness in the sky actually was due to another kind of heat -- it was smoke from fires in northeastern Wyoming.)
Just north of Badlands National Park and just off Interstate 90 is the town of Wall, home of the famous Wall Drug. Think of every curio and T-shirt shop you've ever seen, put together into a building that fills a full city block, and you have Wall Drug. There is a soda fountain, a cowboy apparel store ("Cowboy up!" suggested a billboard coming out of the Badlands), a bookstore, a toy store, a chapel, and on and on. There is even a section with sundries and over-the-counter drugs, although I didn't see any place to fill a prescription. The coin- (or dollar bill-) operated amusement I enjoyed the most was a gizmo that mechanically played two guitars, a banjo, and a tambourine in a pleasant country tune.
I stopped in at the National Grassland Visitor Center in Wall and learned that the abundant purple flower I had admired in the Black Hills is a weed that is wreaking havoc in the north central range. Outside the Center I saw a new bird for my list -- a Western Kingbird with a black mask, black tail, gray back, and bright yellow underside. From Wall I was forced to take Interstate for 1/2 mile to the exit onto Route 14 , which passed through checkered prairie, range and wheat fields to Pierre. I made a point of turning each time a sign pointed to a business district. In most cases, the "business district" had only a couple stores. Each town had a pleasant City Park. Late in the day I crossed the wide Missouri into Pierre, one of a handful of state capitals not on an Interstate. After procuring a motel room, I went down to Steamboat Park, just in time to see the sun set behind the Missouri River bridge. A sign told me I was on the Lewis and Clark Trail! (To my surprise, it was paved. I didn't know they had asphalt back then. :) ) Then dinner at Mad Mary's Steakhouse, which was decorated with rifles and pictures of John Wayne and had classic country (e.g., Patsy Cline, Hank Williams) as the music. Dinner was an excellent sirloin (Beef!) and tasty "sunspots" -- fried rounds of sweet potato.
On Saturday I didn't get on the road until 11:30, at which point it was 110 F in Pierre. Lucky me -- I was here for the hottest day in South Dakota recorded history. Pierre later got up to 117 F, but, by driving east, I didn't have to put up with any more than 109 F. A stiff breeze helped alleviate the force of that temperature. The towns gave evidence of former prosperity that has been degraded by drought and bypass highways. The business in the "business district" of Blunt consisted of the post office and the city hall. Possibly the old barbershop was open on weekdays, but the hardware store and old clapboard movie theater were clearly dead. In Highmore, I stopped at the Tastee Freeze for a tin roof sundae (chocolate vanilla swirl with caramel and chocolate sauce, topped by peanuts). Across the street was a Ford dealership whose inventory was 90% pick-up trucks. Across from it (kitty corner to the Tastee Freeze) were a variety of tractors and agricultural attachments. The road continued to pass through wheat fields, hay fields -- many with huge rolls of baled hay dotting the field -- and cattle farms. I felt sorry for the black-hided cattle stuck standing in the full force of the sun. Each little town had a grain elevator and silos. At a couple points, I passed fields that had semi trucks parked near harvesting equipment. The harvesters made the semis look small.
Huron boasted the world's largest pheasant -- a huge kitsch statue along the lines of the giant cowboys, Paul Bunyans, and cows that bedeck various enterprises throughout the country. I also saw several real pheasants. They are even more suicidal than the blackbirds in Ohio. A male ran across the road so close that I had to slam on the brakes. Later I watched in disbelief as a female flew up from the side of the road straight at my car. Just when I was sure it was going to hit right about in the driver's window, it veered away. This was just before Holabird -- perhaps named after birds who fly into cars and then become holy souls in their birdy heaven.
By 3:30, I reached De Smet, South Dakota, to sate myself on Laura Ingalls Wilder history and memorabilia. Laura was one of my best friends growing up -- I read her "Little House" series at least 10 times through. De Smet is the "Little Town on the Prairie", where Laura lived as an adolescent and young adult. The Ingalls family was the first family there, and the Wilder family was among the first. L.I.W. having become famous through her books and then a TV series, every detail about her and her family is now of intense interest. The L.I.W. Society gives tours of the surveyors' house where the Ingalls wintered after arriving at Silver Lake (sadly, drained in 1923), and of the home Charles Ingalls built in town 2 years after Laura married. They also provide a map of the locations of various buildings, or the sites of former buildings, mentioned in the books. The site of the Ingalls homestead bears a monument to Laura, and the 5 cottonwoods Pa planted there are all still standing -- huge trees now. There are also various for-profit enterprises that recreate Laura's life and pioneer living. That pioneer life is near unimaginable. When they arrived in De Smet, there was not a tree to be seen -- just endless prairie grasses. The wind blew constantly. The typical claim shanty was 10' by 8' -- your bathroom is probably larger, maybe even your closet. The winters and the summers were just as brutal as now (or nearly: apparently this summer is the most brutal), but without central heating or air conditioning or comfortable cocoons of cars to travel through the hostile atmosphere.
Sunday morning I made another visit to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Society gift shop, then headed east on Route 14, now the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historical Highway. Dark clouds were looming in the northwest, providing relief from the intense hot sun. Just outside of De Smet is a field throwing a grenade in the Culture Wars -- rows and columns of little white crosses, like a veterans cemetery, and a sign announcing there were 826 abortions in South Dakota in 2002, and over 44 million in the US since Roe v. Wade. While clearly a display planted several years ago, the lawn under the crosses was neatly mowed. And today embryonic stem cell research is again in the news. Oh Brave New World! How bravely will we deal with all the ethical challenges our amazing technologies bring?
De Smet is right at the edge of the Land o' Lakes, and the road east of there passed a number of small lakes hosting American white pelicans, egrets and ducks. A foray into the business district of Lake Preston was rewarded with a car show on Main Street -- fewer and more diverse cars than the Mustang show in Steamboat, but each car lovingly detailed, with the owners constantly wiping off each speck of dust. In Brookings, home of South Dakota State, I spent the afternoon at the public library with its free Internet access (we love libraries) and had dinner of excellent St. Louis ribs (Not beef! But the Eat Beef signs have ceased) at Cubby's Sports Bar and Grill. Then yet further east on Route 14 as the sun lengthened. Starting shortly before De Smet and continuing east, the fields became greener and greener, with more corn and less wheat and the corn stalks ever higher. The towns looked more prosperous, with going concerns in the business districts, and I crossed into Minnesota.
More Laura lore in MN. You cyber-pioneers check back in a couple days.
Route 44 curves under the south side of Badlands National Park, then, just beyond Interior, joins 240 to go through the Badlands. I turned into the Business District of Interior. It consisted of the little Badlands Grocery, the tiny Interior post office, and an Indian crafts "outlet" -- a small room with a modest inventory of pottery, jewelry, beadwork and T-shirts. I became one of a very elite club to possess an Interior, SD polo shirt.
Immediately after paying my National Parks fee to gain entry to the Badlands, I stopped at the Cedar Pass Lodge for an Indian taco (seasoned buffalo meat, cheese, lettuce and tomato on Indian fry bread). Then into the heat and the barren earthen pyramidal towers of the Badlands. The Badlands join Bryce, Zion, and Ghost Ranch as a huge piece of real estate where geology, erosion, and aridity have collaborated to create an astonishing landscape. It is a photographer's paradise -- every turn providing new layers of weird formations, and lots of turnouts provided to appreciate them. I turned out at each of them and took pictures. To the extent possible, I took pictures from the car, or simply jumped out quickly for a shot, and then jumped back into the air conditioning. The car's thermometer read 104 F. To my amazement, a number of tourists were willing to walk the trails from the turnouts in that heat. There was not a single wisp of cloud to shield the sun and, usually, not a single tree in sight. Often there was prairie on one side of the road, but the absolutely barren badland formations on the other, their buff and red surfaces reflecting back yet more light and heat. The sky was not deep blue, but nearly white at the horizon, making the phrase "white hot" seem appropriate to describe the ambience. (The whiteness in the sky actually was due to another kind of heat -- it was smoke from fires in northeastern Wyoming.)
Just north of Badlands National Park and just off Interstate 90 is the town of Wall, home of the famous Wall Drug. Think of every curio and T-shirt shop you've ever seen, put together into a building that fills a full city block, and you have Wall Drug. There is a soda fountain, a cowboy apparel store ("Cowboy up!" suggested a billboard coming out of the Badlands), a bookstore, a toy store, a chapel, and on and on. There is even a section with sundries and over-the-counter drugs, although I didn't see any place to fill a prescription. The coin- (or dollar bill-) operated amusement I enjoyed the most was a gizmo that mechanically played two guitars, a banjo, and a tambourine in a pleasant country tune.
I stopped in at the National Grassland Visitor Center in Wall and learned that the abundant purple flower I had admired in the Black Hills is a weed that is wreaking havoc in the north central range. Outside the Center I saw a new bird for my list -- a Western Kingbird with a black mask, black tail, gray back, and bright yellow underside. From Wall I was forced to take Interstate for 1/2 mile to the exit onto Route 14 , which passed through checkered prairie, range and wheat fields to Pierre. I made a point of turning each time a sign pointed to a business district. In most cases, the "business district" had only a couple stores. Each town had a pleasant City Park. Late in the day I crossed the wide Missouri into Pierre, one of a handful of state capitals not on an Interstate. After procuring a motel room, I went down to Steamboat Park, just in time to see the sun set behind the Missouri River bridge. A sign told me I was on the Lewis and Clark Trail! (To my surprise, it was paved. I didn't know they had asphalt back then. :) ) Then dinner at Mad Mary's Steakhouse, which was decorated with rifles and pictures of John Wayne and had classic country (e.g., Patsy Cline, Hank Williams) as the music. Dinner was an excellent sirloin (Beef!) and tasty "sunspots" -- fried rounds of sweet potato.
On Saturday I didn't get on the road until 11:30, at which point it was 110 F in Pierre. Lucky me -- I was here for the hottest day in South Dakota recorded history. Pierre later got up to 117 F, but, by driving east, I didn't have to put up with any more than 109 F. A stiff breeze helped alleviate the force of that temperature. The towns gave evidence of former prosperity that has been degraded by drought and bypass highways. The business in the "business district" of Blunt consisted of the post office and the city hall. Possibly the old barbershop was open on weekdays, but the hardware store and old clapboard movie theater were clearly dead. In Highmore, I stopped at the Tastee Freeze for a tin roof sundae (chocolate vanilla swirl with caramel and chocolate sauce, topped by peanuts). Across the street was a Ford dealership whose inventory was 90% pick-up trucks. Across from it (kitty corner to the Tastee Freeze) were a variety of tractors and agricultural attachments. The road continued to pass through wheat fields, hay fields -- many with huge rolls of baled hay dotting the field -- and cattle farms. I felt sorry for the black-hided cattle stuck standing in the full force of the sun. Each little town had a grain elevator and silos. At a couple points, I passed fields that had semi trucks parked near harvesting equipment. The harvesters made the semis look small.
Huron boasted the world's largest pheasant -- a huge kitsch statue along the lines of the giant cowboys, Paul Bunyans, and cows that bedeck various enterprises throughout the country. I also saw several real pheasants. They are even more suicidal than the blackbirds in Ohio. A male ran across the road so close that I had to slam on the brakes. Later I watched in disbelief as a female flew up from the side of the road straight at my car. Just when I was sure it was going to hit right about in the driver's window, it veered away. This was just before Holabird -- perhaps named after birds who fly into cars and then become holy souls in their birdy heaven.
By 3:30, I reached De Smet, South Dakota, to sate myself on Laura Ingalls Wilder history and memorabilia. Laura was one of my best friends growing up -- I read her "Little House" series at least 10 times through. De Smet is the "Little Town on the Prairie", where Laura lived as an adolescent and young adult. The Ingalls family was the first family there, and the Wilder family was among the first. L.I.W. having become famous through her books and then a TV series, every detail about her and her family is now of intense interest. The L.I.W. Society gives tours of the surveyors' house where the Ingalls wintered after arriving at Silver Lake (sadly, drained in 1923), and of the home Charles Ingalls built in town 2 years after Laura married. They also provide a map of the locations of various buildings, or the sites of former buildings, mentioned in the books. The site of the Ingalls homestead bears a monument to Laura, and the 5 cottonwoods Pa planted there are all still standing -- huge trees now. There are also various for-profit enterprises that recreate Laura's life and pioneer living. That pioneer life is near unimaginable. When they arrived in De Smet, there was not a tree to be seen -- just endless prairie grasses. The wind blew constantly. The typical claim shanty was 10' by 8' -- your bathroom is probably larger, maybe even your closet. The winters and the summers were just as brutal as now (or nearly: apparently this summer is the most brutal), but without central heating or air conditioning or comfortable cocoons of cars to travel through the hostile atmosphere.
Sunday morning I made another visit to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Society gift shop, then headed east on Route 14, now the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historical Highway. Dark clouds were looming in the northwest, providing relief from the intense hot sun. Just outside of De Smet is a field throwing a grenade in the Culture Wars -- rows and columns of little white crosses, like a veterans cemetery, and a sign announcing there were 826 abortions in South Dakota in 2002, and over 44 million in the US since Roe v. Wade. While clearly a display planted several years ago, the lawn under the crosses was neatly mowed. And today embryonic stem cell research is again in the news. Oh Brave New World! How bravely will we deal with all the ethical challenges our amazing technologies bring?
De Smet is right at the edge of the Land o' Lakes, and the road east of there passed a number of small lakes hosting American white pelicans, egrets and ducks. A foray into the business district of Lake Preston was rewarded with a car show on Main Street -- fewer and more diverse cars than the Mustang show in Steamboat, but each car lovingly detailed, with the owners constantly wiping off each speck of dust. In Brookings, home of South Dakota State, I spent the afternoon at the public library with its free Internet access (we love libraries) and had dinner of excellent St. Louis ribs (Not beef! But the Eat Beef signs have ceased) at Cubby's Sports Bar and Grill. Then yet further east on Route 14 as the sun lengthened. Starting shortly before De Smet and continuing east, the fields became greener and greener, with more corn and less wheat and the corn stalks ever higher. The towns looked more prosperous, with going concerns in the business districts, and I crossed into Minnesota.
More Laura lore in MN. You cyber-pioneers check back in a couple days.
posted by Annventurer | 12:40 PM
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