Day 4: SD to Gillette, WY

Today was a long day... a very long day. This morning began with an appointment at the Saturn dealer to fix my windshield wiper. For those who may not be aware, owning a car is like having a parasitic twin attached to your hip that can only be nourished with money. While a windshield wiper is a vitally important part of the car, it seems like a simple, innocent device - oh no. The wiper transmission regulator whatever-the-hell-it-is cost $436 and two hours for installation. Whoop-de-doo. But, there is always a bright side. Because we knew that we would be getting a later start, Michaela found a closer location to stay over night. She called to cancel her original reservation to discover she had made it for the wrong day. Same was true for the following night as well. So, had the windshield wiper not shit the bed, we would have arrived to our next location to find we had no reservation. Serendipity is indeed the word of the day.

So after all of the shenanigans, we left at about noon and drove clear across the state of South Dakota. The landscape continued to impress us as we continued to view wide open space after wide open space. After we crossed into mountain time, we began to see on the horizon the distant hue of mountains. Very exciting. As we approached the Badlands, the landscape changed very quickly. All of a sudden we went from wide, green, amazing open fields to:

Holy crap! Needless to say, we were both completely flabbergasted by the whole experience. We took the Badlands scenic loop, Route 244, about 60 miles of mind-blowing nature. Michaela could barely be contained. From here, we hauled ass over to Mount Rushmore, which is a solid 30 miles off the interstate, but worth the detour:

We also got got our fix of local hokiness by visiting WALL DRUG, in Wall, South Dakota, for which we spent a solid 250 miles previous looking at hundreds of ridiculous billboards. It was a hilariously over the top old west-themed outdoor mall that I found to be very entertaining. I mean, what else can these people do? Michaela and I were also taken aback by icky commercialism surrounding Mount Rushmore. Endless themed strip-malls, restaurants, and nonsense. I guess that's just how it goes.

After having a lovely dinner at a restaurant on the Rushmore trail involving a very sweet waiter from Oklahoma, we made the way to our hotel, 120 miles away, in Gillette, Wyoming, arriving at 11:00pm. Long. Grueling. But completely worth it.