"Put a Bird On It"

Yesterday I woke up and for the first time in my life thought, “where the hell am I?” I sat the seat of the car up and looked around. There was a baseball field, three very old trucks and a whole lot of nothing.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“I don’t remember the name. I just pulled off the highway. Broadus, maybe.”

The window was cracked and we could hear the thousands of crickets in the tall grass (no exaggeration. The crickets will inherit the earth.) “I’ve been thinking…” Brandon said.

“Yeah?”

“About showering. I need to shower. There’s a camp ground nearby.”

We found the coin-op showers and took $.75 showers. Not bad, really. 

“Mary, before you go in there, I think I should warn you that it’s not the cleanest looking place.”

“How gross?”

“They look just as old as the town.”

Fresh smelling and in high spirits, we hit the road.

Fun facts:

-The mountain range through Montana is incredibly beautiful.

-Rapid City, MT has the best radio stations.

-Montana has a ridiculous number of license plate designs.

-There are no signs on the highway to give you a heads up that you’ve entered a new time zone.

-Interstates are 75mph everywhere else. Oregonians are wussy drivers.

-Brandon used the first band-aid.

-what the hell is Taco Johns? Because they are everywhere!

We got to Mount Rushmore around 1pm. It was a grand site. Smaller than I thought, which seems silly for saying because their faces are 60’ tall. Those are large faces. Even still, I just expected them to be bigger. The town below Rushmore was so adorable. The little shops and cafes were very old fashioned and if it hadn’t been raining and freezing, I would have liked to spend more time there.

I’d always wanted to go into a cave so we drove to the Rushmore cave. It was found in the 1800’s by a couple of minors and they’ve been expanding and discovering new rooms and tunnels since. In one part of the cave, known as the wedding chapel (yes, they really do have weddings down there) the minors found a large “chimney” in the ceiling and hung a rope to try and climb from the cave. When they got to the top, they were surprised to find the opening to the earth was just about the size of your fist. They climbed back down and found another way out but the rope remains hanging. Since they’ve began having weddings down there, the rope has gained the name of, “the grooms last chance.”

We left Keystone, South Dakota and set on towards Minneapolis. We saw advertisements for a place called Wall Drug “as soon on CMT”. They had a sign every half-mile for SO many miles. Of course we had to check it out. It was the biggest, strangest store. There were rooms upon rooms of merchandise. And I can’t forget to mention the $.05 cup of coffee. There was an art gallery for western art, a “backyard” and a restaurant. All of the stores around Wall Drug were definitely profiting from the tourism being brought in. Main street had the look of a strange western tourist town, whereas the rest of the town seemed in despair. I think Wall Drug was Wall’s last desperate act to save itself.

 The GPS said we would arrive around 2:30-3am. That was our goal. However, while messing with the GPS we discovered there to be a town 6 miles from the Minnesota border called Brandon. Brandon, South Dakota. How could we not stop? We found a motel room for the night at a Comfort Inn off the highway. When we were checking in the guy behind the counter smiled the guy asked, “Hey, do you guys watch Portlandia?”

“Yes! We love it!”

“Yeah, that show is rad.”

It’s awesome to know even people in South Dakota watch and love Portlandia.

We entered our room, 101, to find the most amazing of sites. Right there, across from the mini-fridge beside the bed was a huge Jacuzzi. Just placed there as if it were the most normal thing to have in a motel room in Brandon, South Dakota.

“It’s totally time to party.”

Of course, we spent most of the time sitting on the edge of the Jacuzzi because the water was way too uncomfortably hot. That’s not the point, though. The point is, there was a Jacuzzi in our cheap motel room and life is awesome.

Enjoy every minute,

Mary

P.S. Can you say “Nutter butter bloody burp” three times fast?