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10-22-South Dakota-Corn Palace and Wall Drug



October 22, 2015, Thursday

We saw the Corn Palace. It was being redecorated on the outside.  We took pictures on the inside and the outside of all the corn art. Even though it was the off-season, and the eerily quiet, there were still quite a few visitors.

 
We passed through the Badlands, now a National Park.  Anne says it is very different from when she last visited, 30 years ago--But the Badlands are constantly washing into the White River on the plains below the Badlands Wall.  In 20 more years, what we see now will be washed away to reveal new stripes in the sediments.
 
Wall, South Dakota was just a little further.  We visited Wall Drug. They have really cleaned up the kitschiness from 20 years ago.  Many of the shops had impressive goods for sale, especially boots and other leatherwork.  

We drove through Rapid City, South Dakota, and over the mountain to Keystone, a former gold-mining town. The Holiday Inn express is a huge hotel, and has huge rooms, and a pool. It is a very interesting lounge area on the ground floor, with a buffalo head over the fireplace and miscellaneous stuffed animals across from it.

The Buffalo seems to be saying, "What'r YOU looking at?"

Most of the shops were closed for the season. We ate at a restaurant called "The Railroad Station." I had an enormous burrito, more like an open faced taco that was made with bison meat poured over a hockey puck of Indian Fry bread. Very filling, with interesting spices.  The restaurant had a lot of a HO model trains on shelves in various places around the edges of the restaurant. It looked like there may have been a model railroad that ran around the entire top of the restaurant at one time, but like many of the other trains in this country, most of the track had been pulled up.  Art imitating life?

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