Pierre to the Badlands
Started day with biscuits and gravy – tasty - tho eating with the flimsy plastic utentsils was off-putting…and the Fox news people were shouting at me. Pierre somewhat disappointing – not much of a town, tho it does have a fancy and well-stocked hobby shop.
Wall drugstore the next stop – another completely artificial tourist attraction with every souvenir item you could ever imagine. ..entertainments for kids, stuffed animal heads, jewelry, and…. A world-class bookstore, focusing on the West. Mott took notes while I watched my fellow Americans.
Badlands the next stop. A big WOW – dramatic, but we didn’t see any bison., as was our hope. The shades of green in the grasslands were out of an impressionistic painting - the rock formations, a moonscape.
I have ordered my last buffalo burger – tho my disappointment may have more to do with the cooking technique than the raw materials. Dry – and char-broiled so as to have that fake taste.
To Keystone in the Black Hills – in a very nice lodge – with a balcony view of a profile of George Washington….everyone else in shadow. The town couldn’t be kitschier. A done-up frontier town, with Buffalo Bill show, bars, t-shirts etc. etc. Is this all travelers want? And it is full of motorcycles and their riders. We are near Sturgis, where there is about to be a Harley round-up – world-famous – but I think generally this part of the country densely populated with these two-wheelers.
Taking the Pulse of America
Fox news onTV 4 out of 4
Mozz. Sticks (actually Stix) 3 of 4
Local Paper items -Rapid City, SD –
The Hispanic/Spanish traditon of “quinceanera” came from Native Americans- their child becomes a woman ceremony – both spiritual and celebratory - and the Spanish took it back to Spain giving it a Christian slant.
And – they killed 3 mountain lions yesterday that were hanging out in residential neighborhoods.
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