Close encounters of the Wyoming kind

(Note: If the Little Bighorn National Monument had been open when I drove past it, this post would have been called "Everyone knows Custer died at Little Bighorn. What this book presupposes is... maybe he didn't." But alas...)

After quite possibly the quickest oil change in recorded history (it helps when there are five guys and no other cars), I said goodbye to Rapid City and headed toward Wyoming. But not before stopping for lunch in historic Deadwood, S.D. Contrary to what I've heard about the HBO show of the same name, no one used any fowl language in my presence (I guess they've cleaned up their act since the 1800s) and it seemed like any other sleepy mountain town, not unlike Maggie Valley or Blowing Rock. Except for one thing...

...there was a casino in practically every building in town. Even the mild-mannered saloon where I had a buffalo burger for lunch featured an assortment of slot machines. I did mosey over to the Old Style Saloon #10 (they had $2 single-deck blackjack, resistance was futile), but it was quickly back on the highway for Wyoming.

Last night the plan was to go straight to Yellowstone, but when I got in the car this morning I remembered that there was something on the way that I definitely wanted to see - Devil's Tower.

Devil's Tower was the first national monument, and, with all due respect to Mount Rushmore, the best one I've seen so far. Unlike Mount Rushmore, you can't really sneak up on Devil's Tower. It is a 1,000-foot high stone tower jutting out of the ground, after all. It is also a sacred Native American site, and it's easy to understand why. Not to get too flowery with the prose, but you really get a sense of the awesome power of nature when you see this huge rock that was probably part of an underground volcano 300 million years ago. Very cool.

After the 1.3-mile hike around the monument, I got back in the car and headed west. I stopped for dinner in Sheridan, Wyo., before settling for the night in Billings, Mont., in what has to be the world's nicest Best Western. So tomorrow, if all goes to plan, I'll hit the daily double of Yellowstone and Grand Teton.

Oh, and only two more states to go (!).

Note: As promised, I uploaded a full gallery of the Badlands/Mount Rushmore.

Hail! South Dakota, a great state of the land.

Tuesday was a day I'd been looking forward to for a long time - South Dakota. To get to the part of the state worth seeing (the people here in Rapid City confirmed that was the case), I had to drive south on US-83 from Bismarck to I-90 in South Dakota. Once I got to the interstate, it was just a hop, skip and a jump to Badlands National Park. I did make one bathroom stop on the way from Bismarck, in Mount City, S.D. (pop. 89). The only public bathroom I could find was in the city park, which seemed like a fitting stop as I head toward some of the nation's largest parks.

So I arrived at the Badlands around 3 and it was definitely one of the highlights of my trip so far. You can read about it on your own, but basically it's an area that was under water a few hundred million years ago and is now one of the most unique landscapes in the world. I'll upload an entire gallery later (as promised:)

South Dakota

Last, but certainly not least, was a trip to Mount Rushmore. It was as cool as I'd hoped, with a surprise. As I walked up toward the monument, I noticed that the main viewing area was blocked off. I feared that it was under construction or closed, but it turns out they were filming National Treasure: Book of Secrets. So I stuck around a little long than planned to get a glimpse of Jon Voight, Nicolas Cage and Helen Mirren. I thought this picture was a neat contrast of the movie lights, the lights that illuminate the monument and, of course, the sunset.

Today I'm off to get an oil change here in Rapid City then west to Yellowstone!

And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper

(Sorry, they never made a movie about Bismarck.)

After another good night's sleep (traveling all day=sleeping like a rock at night), I headed back to downtown Minneapolis for lunch. I had a fantastic pot roast sandwich at The Local, then drove south to see the monument to commercialism that is the Mall of America. I really just wanted to see it and move along, but I did get a quick photo of the famed roller coaster.

And with that it was back onto I-94 to Bismarck with a stop in, yes, Fargo. Taking a suggestion from Newport, I stopped at the Roger Maris Museum, conveniently housed in the West Acres Shopping Mall. As ridiculous as a museum in a mall is, it was a pretty neat shrine, complete with some seats from Yankee Stadium pre-renovation.

I enjoyed a lovely dinner in the food court before getting back on the highway and heading due west to Bismarck. And I mean due west. As in, I barely moved the steering wheel for 200 miles. This stretch also marked the first appearance of a 75 MPH speed limit zone. And now that I have a car that can actually go that fast (how did I drive that station wagon to New Mexico, and without cruise control no less?), it makes for some easy driving.

Tomorrow marks one of the portions of the trip I've been excited about since the beginning - the Black Hills of South Dakota. If all goes as planned, I should see both the Badlands National Park and Mt. Rushmore. Tomorrow also marks the point in the trip when I'm not sure how reliable my Internet options will be. So if you don't hear from me tomorrow, don't worry, I'm just out communing with nature.