Day 3: Greetings from Columbus, MT
By SteveToday was all about one word: speed. And rain. Two words. Or one word: rainspeed. Speedrain. Take your pick.
It poured rain for a large part of the journey through South Dakota, which was OK since traffic was light and people weren’t driving like retards.
Observations: Southern South Dakota is the most boring place to driver, ever. OK, maybe not ever. But yikes, it’s all flat and farms and nothing as far as the eye can see, at least until you reach the badass Badlands. And Deadwood, cocksuckers. I didn’t bother stopping at the latter; the buckets of rain made it easily skippable.
Even with the weather, how could I not stop at a place called the Corn Palace? It was highly disappointing, though. It’s just a building where the outer shell is corn. There’s no load bearing kernals or anything. Big whoop. (But, as the signs say, it’s free!)
Also free is the world-famous Wall Drug. The signs start as soon as you enter South Dakota: “Only 322 miles to Wall Drug.” And they never stop. Every mile or so is another, touting 5-cent coffee, or cowboy boots, or write-ups in various publications. It’s very Burma Shave.
By the time you finally get there, you’re obligated to stop at a giant tourist trap of a general store. It’s just the usual crap you find at all of these, spread out over multiple buildings. It’s kinda awesome in its stupidness.
Other South Dakota notes: The world’s most powerful hand dryer can be found at the Triple H Auto/Truck stop in BFE, SD (no idea where it is; sorry). But the dryer will rip the flesh off your hands.
Also, South Dakota smells like shoe.
Wyoming was kind of pretty for all of the hour or so I was in it. I passed the place Richard Dreyfuss crafted out of mashed potatoes but I couldn’t actually see anything because of the cloudiness.
Once the rain stopped, the roads opened up and it was a virtual racetrack. I averaged 85MPH in Wyoming, and probably 90MPH in Montana. I even topped 110MPH for a while… wait, can I be held legally accountable for that admission?
And now, I’m off to sleep. Tonight, I will be a smoker, for all the rooms in Billings, MT were taken by people in town for either a steer/cow convention or Jehova’s Witnesses. I can only imagine the crazy parties when those two groups get together.
June 2nd, 2007 at 1:30 am
That’s pretty damn fast. We only average 80 on old country highways, although we did stay at 90 one time for about 15 minutes when we were all talking & nobody noticed. Standard transmissions really do need cruise control for those really, really long stretches of nothingness.
June 2nd, 2007 at 4:22 am
Wow, looks like you’ll be going through my location of Bozeman, MT tomorrow morning.
I’ll be the guy standing next to the interstate with the “HONK IF YOU’RE BAUMAN” sign.
June 2nd, 2007 at 4:22 am
If you had gone through more of Wyoming, like I did when I drove from Maine to Arizona via Mt. Rushmore, you would have discovered that Wyoming is even more boring than SD. It is nothingness.
Except for the exciting part where you almost run out of gas because the nothing in Wyoming includes gas stations.
June 2nd, 2007 at 1:04 pm
It’s not like Maine is a center of excitement to begin with…
June 2nd, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Bitch, you pointy.
Maine has wonderful beaches and maritime culture. Wyoming is a rusted empty bowl of deceit.
June 2nd, 2007 at 4:01 pm
I’m from New Brunswick. I know exactly what Maine doesn’t have.
And wouldn’t an empty bowl of deceit be really honest?
June 2nd, 2007 at 9:27 pm
The badlands are lovely though. Did you get to see them?
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:39 am
The badlands are indeed lovely, and I checked them out… from my car, as the weather was ghastly.
I only passed through the NE corner of Wyoming. And only once did I let my gas tank get down to 1/4 tank.
June 3rd, 2007 at 7:40 pm
I love me a bad ass hand dryer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz7Yl4OQ_hg