I've Got A Left Hook And A Bad Idea That Say You Should Not Cut Me Off, Mr. Hell's Angels Wannabe Guy Who Is Probably Just A Gas Station Manager!

On Farm Island I was woken at 2 AM by the sounds of children whooping and screaming.

Then I realized they weren’t children at all, they were coyotes. Excited, I went back to sleep. At 3 AM by a noise like someone dumping water right outside my tent. Gutteral chirping sounds erupted across the campsite. I looked out the screen window of the top of the tent and saw fat raccoons ambling across the sites like little black clouds. One had both paws on my coffee mug and was trying to open it. He had knocked it from the picnic table. I love raccoons, but not when they’re destroying my stuff. I unzipped the tent door loudly, enough to scare them away. I put the coffee mug, now with muddy paw prints on it, in the trunk of the car and went back to bed.

I was determined not to let the crappy attitudes of West Dakotans spoil my time west of the Missouri. "So what if they’re pissed off that the only thing they’re known for is the ‘Dances With Wolves’ set and some dead guy’s faces carved into a rock? I’m going to have a great time!"

But that was hard considering all the freakin’ bikers in town for the damn Sturgis Bike Rally. Seriously, I wanted to pick each of them off with a shotgun as I rode down the backroads. I’m really not trying to be mean, but when you’ve got fifteen couples on Harleys at one time cutting you off all over creation, and I don’t just mean on the roads, I mean even in line at the gas pump or when you’re making a right-hand turn, it gets a little difficult to keep a sunny disposition. Especially in line at the gas pump, that really burns me up. When I finally laid on the horn enough to let one couple know that that was my f*cking pump and if they cut in front of me I would maim them right out of their tacky leather chaps, I pumped my gas and scrawled "I HATE BIKERS" in the dust on my car. You can guess how many friends I made with that one.

Also, because of the rally, everything was more expensive, from Sturgis to Pierre. Gas prices were about on par with downtown Chicago, camping that would have cost $15 was $26, and even the price of ice jumped a bit. Still, you can’t blame the towns, stores, or vendors for charging what they do - the towns are so small that without the Sturgis Rally, they’d never survive. They make most of their money in two weeks in August, and that’s it. That just happened to be the same time I chose to go, so be it.

Despite the bikers, the drive was still beautiful; not as much of a shock to the system as the day before but still unmistakably gorgeous. I got some great black-and-white shots (I hope) driving the tiny road between Fort Pierre and Wall, SD. I passed the town of Cottonwood and was astounded. The sign in front said, "Population 12"! I had to see it. Well, it’s possible to see the whole "town" from the road, but I wanted a closer look, so I pulled onto the gravel strip that leads to the cluster of buildings.

It was truly desolate. I counted 8 houses, three of which were inhabited and five of which were boarded up, 11 outhouses, 3 barns, 1 abandoned brick building that looked like a bank, and one dilapadated church. I peered in the windows of the church, not daring to go in and risk falling through the sodden wood floor. I always get sad when I see buildings fall into disrepair, especially community buildings. You’ve got to wonder what occurred in them during their glory days. Did people sing and worship? Were they happy? Did weddings and baptisms take place here? What did people pray for? A sparrow flew from the back door to the altar, settling into a nest in one of the remaining rafters. God speed, little one.

I wonder the same thing about houses a lot, too, and in the last four months I’ve seen dozens, probably hundreds, of abandoned houses. The thought is always the same - did families celebrate birthdays in that house? Or have a Christmas tree? Did couples make love and babies? What happened that it stopped being a home and became a shack? I wondered that a lot driving the gravel horseshoe that made up the entire road system of Cottonwood.
All twelve people in town must have been out at Sturgis, because the place was completely void of people. I put my camera away and continued on.

If you’ve ever driven in Minnesota or South Dakota, and possibly Wyoming, you’ve probably seen signs for Wall Drug. Probably enough to last you a lifetime. Seriously, this place makes Tom Raper look like a lazy sloth in the billboard department. Three words come to mind: Jesus. H. Christ. Honestly, there is a billboard in west Minnesota that says, "Only 355 Miles To Wall Drug!" At first I thought it was a joke, but the signs just kept coming. I stopped counting at 75, and I wasn’t even close to the town of Wall. Still, they do a good job of drawing you in, and by "drawing you in" I mean "wearing you down til you decide to go only to see what all the fuss is about". So I stopped in Wall, where I had my lovely run-in with the Hell’s Angels Wannabes at the gas pump, and followed the HUGE signs pointing to Wall Drug.

Okay, now imagine the boardwalk of the Jersey Shore, or Ocean City, MD, or the cheesiest of cheesy little boulevards at amusement parks where everything is "old-timey" and expensive. And imagine two boardwalks running parallel to one another. And imagine that in between the two are four rows of motorcycles, nothing but motorcycles, one row on each side of the street and two rows in the middle lane. And as you are cursing yourself for being drawn in by these stupid signs for some stupid historical drugstore and trying your best to get the hell out of that whole town, as you are driving, rough-looking women in tight jeans and leather who may have possibly been attractive ten years ago or before that last hit of meth are jay-walking in front of your car like they have the right of way. That’s the Sturgis Rally for people like you and me, and it doesn’t matter which town in South Dakota you’re in, it’s all the same, from Scenic to Wall, Spearfish to Keystone, that is it. Have fun.

I booked out of Wall as fast as my little Toby could carry me (about 87 mph) and south to Badlands National Park. It was such a welcome change from the towns, and even cooler that I got to use my National Parks Pass and get in for free! And even cooler that I got phone service in the park and was able to call friends from the rim of the canyon! There were still bikers all over, but not as many, and I found tons of places in and around the canyons to find solitude. Have you ever seen something so spectacular for the first time that it makes you feel like an explorer, like Sir Francis Drake or something? For instance, I know I’m not the first person to ever see the Badlands. But I know that I’m the first me to ever see it. And bounding, running, skipping over the crests of hills to look out on the canyon, I felt like a kid again. I’m get misty just thinking about it now, it was so beautiful.

I can try to describe the way the Badlands looked, but it would be so hard. Just know that it’s one of those places you must see for yourself to believe or appreciate.

I got pretty good at driving gravel roads while I was in South Dakota, enough to where I could ride them fairly smoothly. The trick is speed. If you go to slow, you’ll bounce in the pits, but if you go about 30, you’ll zoom right over the bumps. All of the roads in the Badlands are gravel and I was having a good old time passing over the beautiful grasslands. There’s one part of the park called Prairie Dog Town, which houses a HUGE network of prairie dogs. I could see literally hundreds of them popping out of their little holes, almost blending into the landscape completely. One barked at myself and a few other people standing around watching, but I use the term "barked" loosely - it sounded more like a hamster being squeezed than anything else.

Even cooler than the prairie dogs were the wild bison roaming the park. I parked the car and took off down the grassy hill when I saw the herd, careening into the valley. It probably wasn’t the best idea, and I almost stepped in buffalo dung a few times, but I still didn’t actually get very close. They were far, far out into the valley. I just wanted to get a few pictures. As I trekked through the grass, it scratching my calves and huge bugs flew nervously from cactus to cactus as I passed. I imagined being an Indian hunting the animals, but I'm so clumsy and loud I would have made a terrible hunter.

I actually got lost in the park, taking a way I didn’t mean to, and ended up in Scenic, SD, about 15 miles outside the park borders, halfway in between the edge of the Badlands and Rapid City. The southwestern rim of the park is bordered by a few sparse farms, and I wished for a moment that I could live in those farmhouses, just to see that view every morning and night, all year long. It must be spectacular.

Scenic, SD, like every other town, was overrun by bikers when I got there. There were also a lot of Native Americans walking around, which I liked seeing. I think they are so beautiful. It looked like a ghost town, very small although not as small as Cottonwood. Most of the buildings are made of striped wood, giving it that "old western" feel. In line at the store, I tried not to stand too close to others, because I knew I stunk.

Moving on to Keystone, I got an over-priced campsite. There were no sites left, so the guides told me to pitch on any spare patch of grass in the park. It had begun to rain and I made a pitiful sight in my muddy jeans, all the picnic tables taken, setting up my stove on the trunk of my car, heating up chicken soup and eating outdoors in the rain, my nose running, hood on, the steam rising defiantly as raindrops fell in the soup. I didn’t even pitch a tent because of the rain. People standing in the doorways of their ginormus RV’s stared at the little ragamuffin as she ate. I wanted to turn around and shout, "Yeah, look at me! I’m poor! Wow!" (On a sidenote, I’d like to address anyone who buys an RV and brings a portable TV satellite dish into the woods: Please go find the nearest body of water and drown yourself in it. You’re in the woods for a reason and it’s not TV, number one. Number two, if you want to watch cable so bad, why don’t you stay in your house, surrounded by your throw pillows and beer can collection and leave me to drive through the forest without worrying about running over your power cords? Piss off.)

After eating, I took a drive to Mt. Rushmore. People, save your money. If you go to Mt. Rushmore, please join me in boycotting the $8.00 parking fee at the garage and instead, just drive by and take pictures from the car. It’s just a bunch of faces anyway. Maybe I’m just bitter because the road was, again, clogged with Harley-Davidsons but seriously, the parking is such a rip-off. Having seen it and being able to say I saw it, I headed back to the campground. It at least had a pool and a hot tub and parking was included in the $26 I had paid to stay.