There's Always More to See

Written by Zoe, events of May 23

Day two started off rather boring, as we had to finish our trek through Northern Missouri.  This ride was very unmemorable- I even fell asleep! When I awoke, Lydia told me there had been many signs for Wall Drug Store.  She had me look it up in the book 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, which we borrowed from her friend John.  To our surprise, this is a very big tourist attraction, so we decided to stop by later in the day. 

After five hours of driving we made it to Fall of the Big Sioux in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  Although you could smell the local slaughterhouse, we enjoyed this stop.  The falls were surrounded by vibrant red rocks, which reminded Lydia of Elephant Rocks State Park.  There was a cool viewing tower, which allowed us a cool view of the “city-scape.” 

Next we headed for the Corn Palace.  On the way we found the World’s Largest Bull Head at Porter Sculpture Park.  We pulled off hoping to get a better view, but were disappointed that the park was still closed for the season, so we continued on our way.  

A few hours later, Lydia was excited to finally arrive at the Corn Palace.  Unfortunately, she was disappointed by what we found, guess she should’ve listened to me.  The outside of the building resembled your average auditorium, except that it was decorated with a few murals made of corn.  Inside was basically a gym filled with souvenirs.  Lydia was expecting the whole place to be built of corn, so the concrete structure was a let down.  Leaving the Corn Palace, we treated ourselves to some homemade ice cream (really good) and took a stroll around the town.  Everything in the town related back to corn, for example, the local insurance company was call “CorInsurance.”  We also found at the bottom of each stoplight a husk of corn. 

Two hours later, we stopped at Badlands National Park.  This was semi-unplanned but well worth our time.  We took a 31-mile loop around the park, stopping at many scenic overlooks to climb the rock formations and look for wildlife.  Lydia read a few signs about the settlers who traveled west through these formations in a horse and buggy.  Needless to say, we felt fortunate to have roads and a car.   One of our favorite areas in the park was a spot filled with hundreds of prairie dogs.  We pulled over to watch the little animals scamper across the ground.  They made really cute little squeaking noises.  Apparently, the Prairie Dogs (along with other rodents in the Badlands) are battling the plague.  After reading this sign, I no longer had the desire to pet one of these furry little creatures.

Exiting the Badlands, the signs for Wall Drug popped back up.  We were happy to see that we were only a few miles away.  We eventually found the store nestled in a small little South Dakotan town.  The store was humongous!  They had everything from souvenirs, to a diner, and even a large T-Rex in the backyard.  The story of its start is quite interesting.  Back in the 30s a young pharmacist and his wife decided to open a pharmacy.  They decided on Wall, South Dakota because of its small population and Catholic Church.  The young couple struggled for the first five years, until the wife came up with a brilliant idea.  She decided that the store should offer free ice waters to those travelling down I90.  The husband started putting road signs up on the freeway and customers started rolling in.  The couple got so into advertising, that they even had signs sent to Europe during WWII. 

We made it to our final stop of the day, Mount Rushmore, around 8:30, just in time for the nightly lighting show.  Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into.  We expected some red, white, and blue lights to shine over the mountain with the Star Spangled Banner playing in the background. Instead we got a 15 minute presentation by a Park Ranger who quizzed the audience on the states and capitals, a 25 minute movie about the presidents portrayed in the sculpture, followed by a presentation of all of the military personnel sitting in the audience.  Finally they flipped the switch and the monument was illuminated.  It probably wouldn’t have been so bad, expect that it was cold and we had been travelling for the past 15 hours.

After the show we made our way to the campground we had reserved for the night.  We had to take some scary winding roads through the darkness (it reminded me of a horror movie), but we eventually made it.  We pitched our tent, changed into our pajamas, and settled in for a cold, wet night of sleep.