6/23: Your Love Is My (Wall) Drug

Sioux City to South Dakota:  Woke up around 6am (beat the alarm) and took 29N to South Dakota.  Crossing the border we saw a billboard with a picture of a gray wolf wrapped in an American flag under which was written: “Eat steak, kill animals, keep your guns. The American Way.”  Midwestern billboards are consistently this colorful and charming.  We then visited the World’s Only Corn Palace in Mitchell.  How to describe it but to say that it was a large building sided with corn husks?  It had spires too, and those also seemed to be made of corn.  To be honest it looked more like a Corn Castle or a Corn Fortress than a Corn Palace per se.  Lots of corn-themed tchochkes inside, which we laughed at and picked up but didn't buy.  We ate lunch on the porch of a Corn Palace-adjacent restaurant and were the youngest people there by at least thirty years.  Later in the day we crossed the wi-ide Missouri, which was bright blue. Tim agreed that it was “impressive.”  Beautiful plains along 90W.  Yellow flowers everywhere and cows grazing.  We had a Ke$ha sing-along for about fifteen songs straight, though there were 30 on the playlist.  We passed through the Badlands ($15 admission fee, Big Government strikes again!).  The views were...staggering.  We saw a billy goat by the Ancient Hunter Overlook (“We have reason to believe that ancient hunters once looked…right over here!”).  We passed through Wall Drug Store later on but were too tired to explore much. Ate dinner at a Gastro-Pub called “Murphy’s” which was comfy and decent of food.  I had chicken while Tim had a burger (POINT: ME!).  Drove to our campsite in the mountains.  It was very, very nice.  In the lounge (it had a lounge) we met up with a senior citizen who was paid to act as the camp's caretaker.  He gave us lots of tips as to what to do in Vegas.  “Go to a small casino called Ellis Island and ask, ‘What deals do you have for me today?’  They won’t tell you unless you ask.”  (A metaphor for the greater American experience, perhaps?)  We will probably not follow this advice but appreciated it all the same.  At night we could see our breath and we made a fire.  It got down to a chilly 51 degrees.  Both slept very well.  (Tim DIDN'T SNORE!!!!!)