Day 8: East of the 'ssippi

Who knew Graham offered free internet?

Throughout my trip I have seen increasing numbers of motorcycles on the roads, especially as I have traveled east. In fact, more and more these motorcycles have appeared in groups of at least three, and upwards of ten sometimes. I had suspected the reason for this since my first night in Montana, and yesterday this suspicion was confirmed; Sturgis, South Dakota. The annual biker rally has been going on this entire week I have been gone, and culminates this weekend. Never in my life have I seen such a multitude of bikers accumulated in one place. Literally thousands of motorcycles (and some of those funky tri-motorcycles) cruised around the streets of Sturgis, among hundreds of booths, vendors, and venues. It reminded me of a summer music festival like Lollapalooza or Warped Tour, except 100 times crazier. I didn't spend long in Sturgis (to be honest, I felt a bit out of place in my little Civic), I drove the main drag up and down just to soak in as much as I could. I imagine that had I been involved in the motorcycle scene I would have wet myself with excitement.

After Sturgis I headed south on some local highways through Deadwood. The town was kind of interesting, but seemed very cheesy, kind of like the gambling and drinking version of Disneyland. It was pretty bustling with bikers, though (which is fairly unsurprising considering how many signs advertised free draught beer for bikers).

Just down the road from the Bush Sr. stone
carving

Keeping on the southernly trail I ended up at Mt. Rushmore. I didn't have the cash to actually park in the official parking structure, so I ended up simply stopping by the side of the road (probably quite illegally, but I definitely wasn't alone) to snap a couple of pictures. To be honest, not terribly impressive. Maybe my expectations were just too high, but the sculptures seemed quite a bit smaller than I had imagined. Or maybe it was just further away than I realized. Either way, I'm glad I saved my money.

The rest of South Dakota was about what I had heard; that is, completely uninteresting. Maybe I just missed all the interesting things, but somehow I think that list is pretty short. For about 100 miles along I-90 there are advertisements for a place called Wall Drug, which purports itself to be a mecca of everything western. Of course I had to stop. Some of it was pretty interesting to look at, but once again the whole thing seemed so incredibly staged that I couldn't really get over the feeling of walking through "Western town" at some Disney park.

The rest of the interesting things in South Dakota

The next stop I made was Sioux Falls around 11:00 PM (which I think may have actually been 10:00 PM according to when I woke up this morning, but I'm beginning to lose track of what the current time actually is where ever I am; my cell phone can't seem to decided depending on what kind of signal it gets). I considered staying here for the night, but a quick survey of the motels proved futile (thank you Sturgis), and I couldn't find an area un-shady enough to park and sleep for the night. No worries, after two cups of coffee and a sandwich I was energized and couldn't sleep anyways, so I jumped back on I-90 and left South Dakota to those better attuned for it.

I like sunsets and don't care if they are kitsch

Entering Minnesota ended up being a good decision, as I was treated to an awesome lightning show far away on the horizon while I sped down the freeway. Unfortunately I wasn't quite close enough to get any pictures of the actual forks; hopefully I'll get another chance within the coming weeks (chances are probably pretty good).

Three cities later (all still booked), I ended up at Albert Lea. By this point I was pretty exhausted, and was only going to get a few hours sleep even if I did find a motel, so I kicked back in the parking lot of a Hy Vee, a 24 hour grocery super store.

I think I'm starting to get used to this sleeping in the car thing (by the way, my previous hypothesis of getting better sleep stretched out in the backseat is complete bunk; mostly due to "stretched out" being a very generous way to describe curling up in the fetal position just to fit). Falling asleep didn't take long, and I woke up much less than the first night. It's still overrated, though. Tonight is hopefully a motel night.

I'm already into Wisconsin now, it took quite a few stops in Minnesota and here to finally find some internets, things are looking good to push through Madison tonight, maybe even into northern Chicago.

Maybe it's because I spent so little time in South Dakota and Wyoming, but it seems like now that I am getting closer to the east coast the landscape seems to ahve drastically changed quite quickly.

Observation 2: One of the underlying similarities that all people seem to share, no matter which region of the country they are from, is that on average they completely suck at driving. Driving through South Dakota last night, there was this car that would consistently drive up behind me (nearly matching my speed), pass me very slowly, then immediately cut in front of me when they had passed even though there was absolutely zero traffic behind them. They then proceeded to lose about 10% of their speed, causing me to hit my brakes in fear of rear ending them at 70mph. Their speed would then stay below what mine had been on cruise control, so I would pass them back up at my cruising speed, and the whole process started all over again.

Seriously people, learn how the hell to drive.

Today I am: glad to be out of South Dakota.
Miles so far: 2784
Sounds of the drive:
Dustin Kensrue - Please Come Home
AFI - Decemberunderground and Sing the Sorrow
Otis Redding - The Ultimate Otis Redding
More Science Friday Podcasts

Day 7: Away from home, on the range

This looks oddly familiar.

Pushed on to Bozeman two nights ago after posting in Great Falls. I felt the need for a shower and a real bed for the night, so I ponied up the cash for a room at a local, only slightly shady motel. I brought up any valuables that the folk hanging out in the parking lot BBQing (a few of them shirtless, most of them beer'd) might feel inclined to appropriate, and immediately took a 20 minute shower. Feeling refreshed and clean enough to not offend the general public, I got ready to check out this town and get some grub. Unfortunately, it seemed my room didn't actually lock from the outside, so down came all my valuables again into my car.

Bozeman is actually a pretty nifty town, very reminiscent of Corvallis (it is after all a university town). The downtown area is particularly interesting, with quite a few bars and restaurants to choose from. I could see myself living there for a short while (say while at school), but probably not really long term, as it is slightly more isolated than I would prefer.

Drive by shooting

After a much needed night sleep, I headed south to Yellowstone. Now, I have been to Yellowstone years earlier, and at that time it had recently been ravaged by a forest fire. Although the trees have not completely grown back, the difference is quite noticeable.

Although the scenery was beautiful at Yellowstone, being one of the more popular national parks was a tad annoying. For this reason, I only made one major stop to walk around the geysers, and of course to watch Old Faithful do its thing (which I barely caught as I was walking up). I did see a bald eagle on the way in, though, which was pretty awesome having never seen on before in person.

Looks beautiful, smells horrible.

Apparently, unbeknownst to me, twenty five dollars is the standard fare to enter a national park (or at least the more popular ones), as once again Yellowstone cost me a quarter of a Benjamin to get in. On the positive side, it also include Grand Teton National Park, which I was planning on driving through anyways, so that was a bit of a bonus.

A note about the roads surrounding Yellowstone and Grand Teton: they are under some heavy construction. I probably lost about an hour in travel time yesterday sitting in a line of traffic waiting for a pilot car to drive us through.

After Grand Teton, I decided that I had not made enough eastwardly progress as I would like. Therefore, Gillette became my goal for the night, I drove pretty much the rest of the day (and some of the night).

As not much else happened to report on, here's a list of various thoughts or observations I've had so far, mostly unrelated to anything else.

Why anyone would blame it on the Tetons is beyond me

1. My car has become a mobile catastrophic event for the insect population of the western United States. The front of my car looks like I painted it yellow and I have to stop at almost every town to wipe my windshield clean.
   
2. The Red Cross of Montana has a campaign where they place little white crosses next to the road where someone has died in an accident on the highways (and multiple crosses if more than one person died at that location). It's slightly chilling to realize how many people have lost their lives on even the few highways that I drove.
3. Every state really seems to have something to offer, be it beautiful scenery, historical significance, or some undefinable quality. However, this does not indicate that I would actually like to live in every place I've been through so far.
4. My car gets extremely decent gas mileage with mostly highway driving. I've been averaging 38ish mpgs, but yesterday between Bozeman and Riverton I somehow got 41 mpg. Thank you Honda and you're higher efficiency standards.
5. While having your windows down is an okay way to cool off on the road, air conditioning may be the best invention in the automobile industry in the history of everything, with the possible exception of...
6. Cruise control. I'm pretty sure this is why I'm getting the gas mileage I am. Although, cruise control on a manual seems to pretty much give up when it encounters any kind of incline, though I'm pretty sure this is due to the mechanics of cruise control only really maintaining rpm's, and not the actual speed.
7. Being able to see the entire Milky Way is amazing.
8. Deer like to come out at night and stand on the edge of the highway staring down cars. This is some sort of game for them, and they are good at it. Coming around a mountain corner at 60 mph to see a buck staring directly at me almost made me mess myself.
   

Time to leave Gillette and keep on keeping on. Next up, Mt. Rushmore and South Dakota.

Trip status: can't believe it's almost been a week.
Total Miles put on this bad boy so far: 1839 (I put quite a few on yesterday)
Recent listenings:
Science Friday podcasts
Norah Jones - Come Away With Me
The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan