REAXblog

I pushed out of Devils Tower pretty early, 8 AM or something. I was hungry and decided I would get breakfast in either Sundance Wyoming or Rapid City, SD.As I got to Sundance, however, I found it was a podunk little town without much more than a gas station. Perhaps it was nicer away from the freeway, but I didn’t want to risk it. I pushed on.

It turns out, it (was) bike week in Sturgis, SD, which meant there were TONS of Harley-Davidson riders everywhere. I looked for my uncle Dave and Abby’s parents, Rachel and Clark, but never spotted them. It was a longshot anyhow. Occassionally a horde of them would enter the freeway together, 100’s at a time, gumming things up a bit, but overall it wasn’t too bad. They drove courteously in general.

I pulled in to Rapid City, navigating a few freeways to get downtown. It was still early (9am?) but hot. I parked Van Go downtown and started walking around looking for a good breakfast spot. I ran into some college looking girls and asked if they new somewhere good. They mostly drew a blank, but one (apparently the host) recommended Wal-Mart. I asked if they knew a good cafe. “Oh, they have really good coffee there too,” she replied. Hmm. The slogan of this town was “Real America, Up Close.” Apparently so.

I walked a few more blocks east on St. Joseph’s and ran into a diner-style breakfast joint. Perfect. Diane’s, or some similar name. It was mostly full of bikers but I got a table anyhow. I chatted with two bikers seated across from me - real estate flippers from Boston. They had taken off their bandanas and donned reading glasses, and talked about the markets to each other. They were similar to many bikers in this way.

I finished quickly, and set out for a internet cafe to do some blogging, e-mailing, etc. I felt I had a ton of time to make it to Sioux Falls for my couch surf. So I sat at Alt. Fuel, a nice coffee shop. I bought a T-Shirt as a gift for a friend, and drank their whiskey-and-vanilla flavored house coffee. It was tasty enough, and it got strangely better tasting and easier to drink the more I drank. Huh.

I hit the road, headed east, still on I-90. It passed 90 degrees outside, probably in the triple digits. I rolled on. I saw signs for Wall, SD, home of some famous drug store. Of course - Wall Drug, apparently from a town called Wall. Perhaps it was vice-versa. I imagined myself visiting, the first tourist interested in something so banal. Nope. The place was packed with (of course) bikers, tens of thousands of chromed out Harley’s. I visited the “drug store” - mostly cheap crap. I bought a Washington State refridgerator magnet for $1 and moved on, gassed up. Wall was also the location of the turn-out to go through the Badlands National Park, so I headed on 240 south to that.

The Badlands had been on my ‘too do’ list for a while, but also a place I thought Van Go feared to tread. 100+ degree weather might not sit well with him. Whatever. The badlands were amazing, as you’ll see in my pictures. The rest of South Dakota is plain and flat, unfeatureful, but at the Badlands, the land drops off the face of the earth into red, angry crags. I drove through badland canyons, over windswept ridges, all the while dodging bikers and such. I spent about 90 minutes driving the 30 or so mile stretch of badlands roads. Unlike Devils Tower, I didn’t buy any souvenirs, but took alot of pictures. I asked a scandanavian tourist to take a picture of me, she did so poorly.

I hit the road again on I-90 a few hundred miles from Sioux Falls. The time zone changed again, throwing me off, and suddently I probably wouldn’t get in to SF until 9pm, a little later than comfortable, especially because my couch surf wasn’t really confirmed just yet. Nonetheless, I stopped in Chamberlain, SD and dipped in the Missouri River. It was warm, and muddly. Apparently it’s called The Big Muddy. Who knew. The swim was good - my first real bath a few days ago in Seattle, and I hit the road again, racing past thunderstorms in the early evening sun.

I got ahold of Kyle - my couchsurf host - finally and got directions to his place. It was in east Sioux Falls, suburban heaven, his parents place. They were having a garage sale with the neighbors, every home had an American flag out front, well manicured lawn. I parked, but had to move to make way for Kyle’s brothers boat. Yup.

Kyle was pretty cool, a future grad student who’d just graduated from the local university, to study public health or get is MD, it was hard to keep straight in my head. We went to a bar (Monks) in downtown Sioux Falls after a quick tour of Sioux River Falls. It was too dark to really get any pictures, I didn’t have my camera with me anyhow.

Monks was cool, they had tasty beer from around the world for cheap, and we ran into some of Kyle’s friends and chatted and drank for awhile before heading back to the house around midnight. I passed out pretty much instantly, the morning arriving just moments after my head hit the pillow…