Day 6: Donuts, dead guys, and a failed attempt at racial equality

Hello from Gillette, Wyoming, where the town's population (~1000) is smaller than Tanya's high school graduating class.  You might think that's small, but it's a damn metropolis (no, not that one) compared to what we saw on the stretch from South Dakota into Wyoming.

The day started in Wall, SD, home to Wall Drug, which appears to be the best marketed business that has ever existed in the history of mankind.  Signs and billboards point the way to the store for hundreds of miles before you reach the town.  The sheer number of signs might lead you to believe you'll be in for a mind-blowing shopping experience.  And you are.  But not in a good way.  It reminded me of equal parts Mackinaw City and South of the Border.  I enjoyed its charm and kitschiness while Tanya seemed perturbed by the whole experience.  Regardless of what side of the fence you're on, it nonetheless provides ample opportunities for pictures.  But no matter how many you take, they can't quite capture the enormity of the experience.  The building is divided into various rooms with merchandise ranging from top-of-the-line cowboy hats and leather boots to anatomically-enhanced beer koozies that celebrate the upcoming biker rally.  The building also contains a small chapel where you can pray that you won't spend $19.99 on a snow globe that has a Santa hat-wearing buffalo inside.

After eating a breakfast of refined white flour and coffee, we headed straight for the various shops and picked up a few more trinkets to commemorate the trip.  We then headed for the backyard area where more plywood cutouts awaited our cameras.  After two hours of people watching and picture taking, we decided it was time to head for our next destination, Mt. Rushmore.  As we left Wall, Tanya, with a very disgusted look on her face, proclaimed that she was leaving town with many more questions than answers.

The Works Progress Administration was the largest agency of President Roosevelt's New Deal.  At its peak, it employed 3 million previously out-of-work men and women to carry out a variety of public works projects.  Among its many accomplishments was the construction of roads, improvements to a variety of public safety facilities such as police stations and firehouses, and the introduction of electricity to rural areas.  It also funded a ridiculous fiberglass dinosaur park in Rapid City, SD.

After the obligatory picture taking at the dinosaur park, we headed for the real highlight of the day, Mount Rushmore.  The terrain near Rapid City changes quickly and before you know it, you're in the Black Hills.  A long winding road eventually takes you back into the Mt. Rushmore National Park, where you pay $11 for parking and make your way toward the monument on foot.  It's not long before you encounter the mountain, which is proceeded by a long sidewalk lined with the flags of each of the 50 states.  We've seen some majestic and iconic structures on this trip - the St. Louis Arch being near the top of the list - but for me, this beats all the ones we've seen so far.  The setting among the mountains and trees is beautiful and peaceful (we even saw a mountain goat grazing in a nearby wooded area) and the enormity of the carvings is a little hard to comprehend.  Walking around the half-mile paved trail that encircles the park provides vantage points of the monument not normally seen in pictures or on TV and makes for some interesting photos.

After a couple hours of staring at carvings of four dead white guys, it was time to move down the road to the Crazy Horse monument in the name of racial equality.  The monument is still under construction, but when it's finished, it will be the largest mountain carving in the world.  The first dynamite blast, however, took place in 1948, so I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for it to be completed.  As we approached the gate to the monument, we saw that admission was going to cost us $20, a steep price to pay to see something that's less than a quarter done.  We had already spent too much money on cow pie-shaped frisbees at Wall Drug, so we sheepishly told the gate attendant that we decided not to enter.  We turned the car around and headed toward Gillette, WY, where Tanya's magical powers had landed us at another posh hotel.  We pulled in about 9pm, a stark difference to most nights when we've been lucky to get to our hotel before 11pm.  As I stepped out of the car into the cool, dry Wyoming air, I wondered how in the hell I ever survived 12 summers in the south.

Tomorrow promises to be another full day.  We plan to hit both Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, then get out of Wyoming before Dick Cheney shoots us in the face.  We've just passed the 2000 mile mark and are only halfway done.  Many more adventures await.