We leave Chicago at 7am on our way to the Badlands, SD. I-90 is not too bad to drive down, as long as it is not in Wisconsin. For some reason, there were more waterparks there than I have ever seen in my entire life. I thought it was cold there most of the year...things don't always make sense in this great nation of ours. Including the fact that there was more traffic in that state than in any other state. For no reason. The people on that road had, in all honesty, no reason to be there. Well, at least no apparent reason. Hours of bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-90 in Wisconsin. What more can I say?
It is no surprise to those who drive through Minnesota and South Dakota that we are the bread basket of the World. That is all there is: corn and hay and wheat. Not much to say here, except that they harvest the grass on the side of the roads out there, which is pretty cool.
Oh yeah, and in South Dakota we visited the CORN PALACE!! Please try to get the severity with which I am trying to convey this point. WE VISITED THE MOTHER-F*&%#@ CORN PALACE!!!! What is the Corn Palace you ask? Well, first off you should already know, there is only one in the ENTIRE WORLD. Second, how many palaces in the United States do you know of? None, because you don’t know anything if you don’t know about the Corn Palace.
It is lame. Really, really lame. Because of this, it is awesome. People come from miles around to see how lame it is. They are not disappointed. The entire front is has a façade made of corn, scenes and words and phrases spelled out in corn ears. They change it every year. They don’t say it is because the corn rots, but that is why. We now rate everything in terms of “Corn Palaces.” Chicago traffic, for example, is a 1 of 10 Corn Palaces, while Steve Miller was a 6 of 10 Corn Palaces. We bought t-shirts and postcards.
Moving on. Driving. Lots of it. We arrive at Wall Drug at 8pm, right outside of the Badlands. The water was terrible, they advertised it for miles: Free Ice Water! Only at Wall Drug! The water was terrible. It was worth repeating.
Mostly because we totally filled around 6 gallons of water capacity for our next few days’ worth of adventures in the Badlands and beyond. So we leave Wall Drug and grab a National Parks Pass at the gate of the Badlands. We drive through sunset and see some of the most beautiful sculpted landscapes we have ever seen...suddenly we see what shall shape our trip to South Dakota forever: Bison. Ta Tonka. Just one solitary male Bison is standing on the side of the road. We freak out and start attempting to take pictures, but the light quality is too poor and no one is able to get a good picture. We start to move on because there is another car approaching, when suddenly, just around the next bend, BAM! an entire herd of Bison is just standing in the road—and won’t move. We are not in a huge car, and there are around 50 of them, just staring at us, face to face, in an almost true-to-life Mexican standoff. We quickly abandoned trying to take pictures, and moved on to video. We sound like frightened little kids, because that is what we are. We all have visions of our car being crushed by thousands of pounds of Turner Burgers. For some inexplicable reason, the Bison would not move for our car, so we let a truck pass and urge them to let the vehicles pass. Following their lead, we pushed through a second herd right outside of the campsite. Here is a video of the first herd;
(Note: Foul language only because of absurdity of situation, and better video could not be uploaded to youtube.com because it was too large. If you prefer the other Bison video to this one, take it up with youtube.com, not me)
We found the first open “site” which consisted of a lean-to and a picnic table. Once we set up our tents…
Jeff purchased a two person JUNIOR tent. That’s right, a child’s tent. He did not even realize it until setting it up, and realized it looked a little small. Well, apparently he fits in it fine, which only confirms our theory that he is just a large child. But not really, we just can't help ourselves...
…and then sleep for the next long day.
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