Day 8
Friday, August 6
“What you’ve done becomes the judge of what you’re going to do — especially in other people’s minds. When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.”
–William Least Heat Moon in Blue Highways
“Blue Highways” was written in the 70s by a guy who, after leaving his wife and losing his job, set out on a trip across America traveling by back roads and avoiding Interstates and cities. It’s one of my favorite books, although Jo might tell you that’s not much of a claim since I read so few. Although Interstates might make it easy to think you’re seeing the country, much of what’s wonderful to discover isn’t near them. Today we were fortunate because we got off I-90 to take the road less traveled. We stopped in Philipsburg, which we thought was just another tiny Montana mining town that had seen better days, and while drinking my coffee I learned that Philipsburg has been making a comeback because of a candy store.
I met the owner of the Sweet Palace who had come to town with her husband about a decade ago. They started a candy store figuring people on vacation eat stuff they wouldn’t at home and, point taken, Jo and I walked away with nearly $20 worth of chocolate. Apparently, candy lovers from around the world make pilgrimages to this place which does over a half million dollars of business a year in sort of the middle of nowhere.
As we were making the walk to the car with our chocolate motherlode something happened that we had both bet never would on this journey, we bumped into people we knew. A friend of Jo’s of many years from Rockland, ME was on a fishing trip with three other guys. One of them turned out to be a college classmate of mine at Dartmouth who now lives in Camden which I hadn’t known. There was a moment of mutual shock among all of us and as we drove away and saw some lightening we decided we’d better not get out of the car and risk getting hit twice.
We made two other stops later in the afternoon at Superfund sites. Yes, call me the environmental accident(al) tourist. One was in Anaconda to see a golf course that Jack Nicklaus designed on the scarred remains of a mineral smelter. The sand traps don’t have sand, they contain finely ground black slag. Our federal government paid for the construction of the course and then gave it to the city. I happen to think this is a pretty cool way to put an exclamation point on man cleaning up after man’s harm to his environment. Golf isn’t usually associated with that but at least here it is.
The other place isn’t cool at all and you actually pay $2 to look down on an unquestioned and un-remediated environmental disaster. The Berkeley Pit was an open pit copper mine right beside downtown Butte. It was productive to say the least. A billion tons of copper and other minerals were extracted from it before it was closed in 1982. At that point the water pumps that kept ground water from seeping into it were turned off and the pit started to fill up. Some years later a flock of migrating geese were found dead in the pit’s water and the consequences of its mining became clear. Heavy metals and dangerous chemicals had turned it into a toxic waste can. The pit is a mile long, a half a mile wide, 900 feet deep and so toxic that the life forms that survive in it are thought to possibly provide clues to cures for cancers– the theory being that the bad can be destroyed by the even worse. I’d seen the Pit before when I did a story about this place. It never aired on World News Tonight. I don’t think it was because the story wasn’t worthy. What I suspect was the reason was ageism. The correspondent with me had simply fallen out of favor and was in his 50s. At the time I realized my own age had also become a liability in my workplace.
We got to Bozeman and walked from our motel to the rodeo that was the main attraction tonight and only several hundred yards away. It featured calf roping and bull riding and barrel racing accompanied by a 20 mile an hour wind. Jo noticed that nearly all the kids were blond and as I looked around in the stands I couldn’t find a single Black, Latino or Asian. Jo and I looked at each other and she said what I was thinking that we were likely the only Jews there as well. I added that it was also Friday night and Shabbat. We certainly didn’t feel unwelcome, just aware that we had left behind the diversity of the big city here in the Big Sky.
I saw two kids in cowboy outfits and got permission from their parents to take their picture. Afterward I said to Jo that I thought I’d taken the best picture I’d have from the entire trip.
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Day 9
Saturday, August 7
We went to Walmart in Bozeman this morning and got a science lesson. The ice in the cooler we have in the backseat melts by the end and water has been leaking all over the stuff we’re trying to keep cold. An employee in the store told us that double zip freezer bags were the solution– we’ve been using ordinary plastic bags –and then suggested that we should add a little water and salt to the ice and make sure the freezer bags were on the top of the cooler. He talked about the physics and chemistry behind all this and when I said he sounded like a teacher he told me he had been— driver’s ed. But he also explained before that he had worked at Caltech as an astronomy technician.
We hit the road and other riddles popped up throughout the day that I could have used his help with. Why were so many horses standing in pairs by the Interstate as we passed them? Why in this one field were there both rectangular and round bales of hay and not just one or the other? At lunch in a park in Billings why did my hardboiled egg when I cut it up look so much larger than one scrambled egg? And why did I buy the bag of kosher dill flavored potato chips at the gas station? As I was beating myself up over this last one I ate most of them.
We stopped at the Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument in the afternoon. Until 1991 the site had been called the Custer Battlefield National Monument but the first George Bush signed a law to change it. I have to add that after watching the orientation film in the Visitor Center political correctness may have played in a role in this and sometimes that seems to me to be changing what’s right to doing what’s stupid.
The finale of the film went out of its way to call those involved on both sides heroes who did what they believed in for their respective nations. It reminded me of youth sports where there are no losers and everybody gets a trophy. What kind of lesson is that? Hey, I know the winner gets to write history but I guess with Custer and Sitting Bull when we write about losing, things can get confusing.
We went through Sheridan, Wyoming and I spotted a bunch of different kinds of chiefs. I bought a bandana in a Western clothing store. I use bandanas as handkerchiefs as opposed to kerchiefs but if I wanted to do that now that I’ve left Los Angeles I won’t have to avoid red or blue ones.
Tonight we’re in Gillette and had dinner at a place that has electric yellow palm trees out front with phony coconuts. Maybe this would have looked nice if it had been neon but it wasn’t and didn’t. We didn’t find any better choices. For a town of about 30,000 it sure has a lot of fast food outlets. According to its Wikipedia page there are: 2 McDonald’s, 2 Burger Kings, 5 Subways, 2 Pizza Huts, 2 Papa John’s, 2 Domino’s, 1 KFC and 1 A&W. Maybe this is normal. We’ve had good luck with motels so far but tonight’s was a bit shabby. I’m afraid this Gillette unlike the shaving company didn’t look or feel sharp.
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Day 10
Sunday, August 9
We knew this day was coming from the moment I talked to a couple outside our motel room in Eureka. They were about our age and traveling by motorcycle to Sturgis, SD. It’s the 70th anniversary of the world’s largest motorcycle rally and as we sped along today it felt like we were being strafed by Messerschmitts on the highway and swarmed by locusts when we got out of the car. A local told us that 800,000 bikers (I checked this stat and it’s accurate.) are expected to show up and as she put it, “We won’t have to have a personal income tax in South Dakota for at least another year.”
The bikers we’ve seen are almost exclusively middle aged and older and attired to the hilt with tattoos, sleeveless tee shirts, leather chaps with lots of gray hair sticking out of their bandanas. The women dress the part, too and if they have cleavage, it’s as prominently on display as the Harleys, although this week you’re probably going to be more in demand here if you can turn a wrench than turn a trick. They all may think they have the hearts of outlaws but are more likely to have the hands of orthodontists and all of them we’ve met are as pleasant as can be— think Ted Danson playing Charles Manson.
Our first stop out of Gillette was at Devils Tower (There’s no apostrophe because it was misspelled the first time.) and that was when we realized that because of the Sturgis rally we were going to be gridlocked throughout our time in the Black Hills. My picture does not come anywhere close to conveying the number of motorcycles everywhere we’ve been.
Devils Tower was famously the geologic oddity that Richard Dreyfus replicated with his mashed potatoes in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Some climbers were scaling it today and if they were also bikers I’d say they’re automatically uninsurable.
Our next destination was Blackwood, which is South Dakota’s gambling capital and now so lucrative that the once dilapidated little town has a four story parking garage. We felt like we were back at Fashion Square in Sherman Oaks. The noise of the bikes drove us inside for lunch where thankfully the windows were closed. An Israeli couple with four young kids sat down beside us and we talked about how big America is. In Israel there’s a joke that goes when you travel over 20 miles you take your pajamas with you.
Mt. Rushmore’s viewing area has been completely revamped since I was last here, no doubt to accommodate more visitors but I’m afraid it has tarnished the majesty of the Presidents’ chiseled in the cliff. The new parking garage costs $10 (That’s $2.50 a head… Get it!) and once you leave your car you walk up a flag lined entry way that looks like something Ferdinand Marcos would have built to honor himself. And compared to the understated former visitor center that’s in a famous scene of Hitchcock’s North by Northwest where Eva Marie Saint shoots Carey Grant, the new one someone said (not me) looks like it belong at Big Schlock Candy Mountain.
In any event bike noise serenaded us as we paid homage to the sculptees and the sculptor who created such a powerful tribute. It was then that Jo told me she’d read a book about him and that he was a rabid anti-Semite. My reverie was ruptured. Now, I know why there aren’t any Jewish presidents included with George, Thomas, Theodore and Abraham but then again when we walked to where we got close enough to look up their noses, Jefferson’s made me think there’s possibly more to his story.
Dinner tonight was the best meal since the Kingdom of Dumpling in San Francisco and a surprise at an Italian restaurant on Main St. in Rapid City. We watched Madmen in our room and I need to amend my claim that we haven’t had the TV on before. This was the second time. I think Don Draper needs to make a road trip to get his head together.
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Day 11
Monday, August 9
Before pulling out of Rapid City we made our second purchase of the trip. Jo had seen a platter in a store window and we went back to buy it. It’s got pictures of buffalo baked on it around the border that were taken in the 19th century by a white man who documented the Indian way of life. Looks better than my description.
On our way out of town I grabbed some daylight pictures of neat neon I either had missed or it just wasn’t turned on the night before. After the last shot as I backed the car out of the parking space I had a little accident. Insignificant damage to our car, enough to the other vehicle to make me think the lower auto insurance rate I was counting on in Maine could now be history. Did you know that “Shit happens” has a Wikipedia page?
Onward we drove almost without a care, which is a hell of a lot better than almost without a car. The signs had started on Sunday but now they seemed like they were appearing every half-mile. “Veterans Get Free Coffee and a Donut”, “Honeymooners Get Free Coffee and Donuts”, “Coffee 5 Cents”… did they miss anyone? Yes, it’s the signage for Wall Drugs, which was possibly the country’s first tourist trap, but how it happened is actually a good story.
A pharmacist and his wife moved to Wall, SD to open their own business. They picked Wall because it had a Catholic congregation and the couple went to church every day. Business was awful and they were ready to make a mass exodus so to speak when one hot summer day the pharmacist’s wife had an idea. She put up a sign on the highway with three prophetic words— Free Ice Water. The rest as they say is history. All I can add is you know all those believers who ask the Lord for a sign? She got one.
Into the Badlands we headed. We’ve had exceptional weather so far but now the sky on the horizon looked scary. In fact I made a joke about Pennsylvania Dutch funnel cake and what appeared like funnel clouds both being able to kill you that didn’t get a laugh. As we stopped at viewpoints I tried to get a decent shot of the lightening we were seeing. Luckily the weather kept its distance and we sped away and crossed into the Central Time while still in South Dakota. It’s one of those states that has two different time zones within it.
At the point on the road where we saw the sign marking this I checked my cell phone and the time had already adjusted. Felt like we had been hit by a silent Cruise missile or could have been.
I don’t know when this started but tonight at dinner I heard it again so it must be everywhere. When our waitress brought the bill she said, “I’ll be your cashier tonight when you’re ready.” Another job outsourced.
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Day 12
Tuesday, August 12
I can think of only four reasons to stop in Mitchell, SD… You need medical care, you need auto repair, you’re falling asleep at the wheel, or you want to see the corn murals at the Corn Palace. When I asked at the motel desk if it was worth a visit, the question got such a dour response I thought I should report the woman to the Mitchell Chamber of Commerce but of course when you’re in Rome you’re going to go Latin and the Corn Palace is the ultimate lend me your ears experience.
The original Corn Palace was built in the 1890s to brag about the area’s fertile soil. It was a wooden structure and only after the entirely corn made murals were affixed to it did the locals realize they had erected a colossal fire trap that even Orville Redenbacher would not have approached without an extinguisher. Actually, Mitchell, SD might have become America’s original “pop” art shrine if the city hadn’t torn it down and started over with a metal frame that supports the present building.
Mitchell changes the murals every year– an all volunteer effort –and even though they’re stuck with an amber waves of grain color pallet we were impressed, especially by one of a locomotive that looked like it was moving. By the way the high school basketball team plays its games in the gym inside and yes, their nickname is the Kernels.
As we got back on I-90 East, Jo asked me the difference between a plains and a prairie. Anybody, know? The only Plains I’ve moseyed in is called White and contains half of my relatives and the only prairies I’m familiar with are the ones with the Little House and a Home Companion both of which I avoid. Garrison Keillor should have Larry David as a guest sometime. Curb Your Enthusiasm visits Lake Woebegone would certainly be a show I’d listen to. To me Keillor’s brand is bland and I’d like to see it kicked to the Curb.
Anyway out on the plains/prairie, I noticed some signs by the road that sort of sum up Middle America for me. Some serious anti-abortion messages alternated with others from Olivia and Annabelle who appear to have dueling “Adult Supercenters”. Also saw one on a silo claiming it was made by the Sukup Silo Company. I’ve checked this out and they are legit. “Hey, got some excess grain? We’ll, Sukup all of it for ya!”
We diverted briefly to Sioux Falls and as I was refueling the car I scored free ZZ Top tickets or could have from a nice guy on his way to the Sioux Falls Fair. He told me he’s a vendor who travels with his son from fair to fair around the country selling cell phone accessories. The economy in the Midwest he thinks is better than elsewhere in America because people still have jobs here due to farming and he added, “Everybody has cell phones so business is good.” I’m always impressed by the niches people find for themselves to make a living.
We caught up to the rain for the first of what would be several times today at a rest area. I got soaked before I could get the umbrella deployed. I’ve never seen a sky so dark. We had crossed from South Dakota into Minnesota and immediately ranches had turned into farms. As we were standing inside the place watching the deluge I asked a guy in a park ranger uniform how the corn crop was doing this summer. He told me it’s going to be a record yield and I wondered if it was too late to call a commodities pit in Chicago–from corn spectator to corn speculator all in one morning.
By the time we got to the next rest area for lunch we had sun again. It was a beautiful spot for a picnic called Clear Lake. The quick drying shirt I’d bought at REI lived up to its billing. We’d spread it above the dashboard and as I drove topless, Jo remarked that if she’d done that she’d have been arrested. I told her that me with my shirt off was exactly the opposite, I couldn’t get arrested.
Our next stop was in Blue Earth, MN and it was short but planned. When traveling lengthy stretches on the Interstate you’ve got to find reasons to get off and I wanted to see the world’s largest statue of the Jolly Green Giant. It’s about 60 feet high and the Green Giant company had nothing to do with it. It was built by a Blue Earth radio station owner who was upset that Interstate 90 had bypassed the town. Yes, he wanted to lure tourists to visit Blue Earth but the guy also had his own radio show on which he interviewed travelers and gave them Green Giant vegetables as a gift. Many apparently asked him if in fact there was a Green Giant. So, I don’t know if the statue has helped Blue Earth any but nobody need ask about the existence of the Green Giant. However, I’m afraid the Giant needs to relocate. He stands behind an abandoned gas station and the neighborhood just doesn’t look like a place where he should be vegging out at this point. Blue Earth had him draped in a tee shirt promoting cancer awareness this day, and I hope he was doused with sunblock.
Austin, MN is the home of Hormel and something I was looking forward to visiting even more than the Jolly Green Giant. By now you know what appeals to me and Austin had something that was a four star attraction. Its Spam Museum wasn’t a disappointment but it wasn’t a grand slam home-run either which just proves that there is only so much you can do with Spam. We truly loved the door that leads into the movie theater.
The film was fun and when a guy came by with a silver tray handing out pieces of Spam on the ends of pretzel sticks, I was obviously in hog heaven.
In the gift shop I bought a can of Spam spread– I didn’t know there are a dozen different kinds of Spam and could have chosen bacon cheese or Jalapeño– but what was really startling to learn was that making all the Spam in the world, which is all the Spam produced here in Austin, takes only a dozen people. That’s so few jobs for such an iconic item that no matter what you might think of Spam as nourishment, it certainly doesn’t seem to be nourishing the local economy much anymore.
But Spam and Hormel’s history was well worth hearing about. There was an interactive exhibit featuring Hormel’s big celebrity pitch people back in the golden age of radio. Music by Artie Shaw and jokes by Burns and Allen. In one bit George asked Gracie, “What would you say if another man asked you out for dinner?” To which Gracie replied, “SPAM!” But before I leave you with the impression Hormel has been just another company interested in trimming its costs for a fatter bottomline take a look at the video below… America and Americana at its best!
We made it to Minneapolis tonight and had the best dinner of the trip at a place called the Modern Café, everything was really wonderful. At the end of the meal Jo asked me what I was going to do now with my can of Spam spread. I told her, “Buy a really good piece of bread.”
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