July 23, Day 9 -- Lander, WY to Custer, SD

We spend the morning doing strange things: Nat has to spend over an HOUR on the phone with a doctor’s office, trying to get an appointment JUST to get his health form for NYU signed. It sounded, if I may, like a horrific time. Tash, meanwhile, takes out all the trash and starts packing the car. At this point, she notices that her right forearm is strangely sore. She ignores it and continues to pack, which is her Way but is not, maybe, Smart. We eventually head to the Maverick Diner for breakfast, and have pretty okay breakfast for under $11! Eventually, we get on the road, and drive all the way through good ol Wyoming.

12:14pm
Thermopolis hot springs are cool, but extremely commercialized and hard to get around. Everyone is mad about the rape of nature.

12:16pm
FINALLY, after many many days (including our last cross-country trip two years ago) of driving through one-lane construction zones, we hit one at the perfect time and the pilot car leads us through with expediency!

12:30pm
On the side of the road is an old swing set, with a tattered old teddy bear strapped into each swing, slowly drifting in the wind. Oh, the creepy. This as we have a slightly pretentious conversation about how life must go out here, in the middle middle of Wyoming, among the dust clouds and hills. It’s Annie Proulx country – Nat thinks it’s all morbid and hopeless, Tash thinks it’s all about sensation. We’re in weird, Wyoming-rural moods. We’re on blank Highway 789/20, heading toward Worland. The land looks as inhospitable as the South Pole.

12:36pm
The Glen Hansard version of Britney Spears' “Everytime” comes on. It’s very strangely good, but we’re embarrassed about liking it. A little.

12:39pm
We pass Wyoming Boys’ School. Nat remarks, “That must be a rough place to go to school, man.” Tash is insanely curious as to what goes on inside. Also: why does Wyoming get a logo? Most states don’t get a logo! Tash is intrigued by this spread-out tribalism that she so doesn’t understand. We chat about Heath Ledger, and experience a nagging sadness.

12:44pm
Worland – for the first time in days, a town with a population higher than its elevation! We seek out an espresso hut, but so far see only the obligatory small-town Chinese restaurant (it varies between China Gardens and Golden Dragon – this was the latter). Eventually, a Millie G.’s Coffee Hut!

1:25pm
Arrive in Ten Sleep – pop 303, elev 4206. We go over Nowood creek – although we’d just been noting that there are far more trees (and hence wood) here than we’ve seen since 11,000 feet. A sign at the end of town says “Thanks for visiting a little western town with a big western heart.”

1:27pm
Pass a house having a problem attack! Looks like it was trampled upon by a dinosaur or a meteor.

1:29pm
Pass a HUGE crazy house with a three-car garage and bright green manicured lawn – and then realize that it’d be a normal sized house in most suburbs….

1:30pm
Brokenback creek! We wonder if we’re near Brokeback Mountain, and decide that we’d like to watch the movie again, but can’t put ourselves through the wrenching sadness.

1:32pm
Some awesome-looking rambling younguns wave and gesticulate wildly from the shoulder as we pass – and though Tash has NEVER wanted to pick up a hitchhiker before, something about the landscape and their manner make her sad that we have no room for them. Good luck, little duders! We continue on the Big Cloud Skyway, Highway 16.

1:45pm
The rock along the road looks amazing, so we pull over and walk around. Turns out it’s pretty chossy, but we have a nice wander and take some pictures.

2:05pm
Pass some 3 billion year old mountains that have mostly turned into messy piles of rock. We go over a 9440 ft pass, and get accosted by tiny gray bugs.

2:45pm
Roll into Buffalo! It’s not cute. There is a China Garden.

3:00pm
Getting back on 90 East from Buffalo, there is a cattle guard on the interstate on-ramp! We decide that cows are one of the main things you don’t want on the interstate.

3:24pm
We cruise control at 80mph! We pass Dead Horse creek – Wyoming has a very troubled relationship with its creeks.

5:32pm
We’ve decided to skip Spearfish due to Tash’s strange strained forearm and Nat’s new HARD-EARNED doctor’s appointment for which we have to be in MA at a certain, soon point. We decide to take Hwy 16 to Custer for dinner, then go on to Rushmore, and camp wherever. The Markelope told us we won’t be able to camp or get a motel within 100 miles of Rushmore, without a reservation, so we’ll see… We had gas ($3.99!!! Heeeey oil country…) and hot dogs in Morcroft. On the way out of town (chasing a HUGE BLACK DRIPPING thunderstorm), we pass a swerving red sedan who flips us off as we pass! Nat is scared that he’s going to follow us into the next town with “No Good Intentions.” I’m scared because I think he’s high as hell. But now it looks like we lost them and are not roughed up at all, and everyone is glad about that.

5:38pm
Finally we get some rain from the storm we’ve been chasing for 2.5 hours! The clouds are crazy and black, with strange pockets of pretty light and puffy clouds.

5:39pm
AGH we missed the South Dakota sign (partly due to writing, partly due to Nat kind of thinking we were already in South Dakota…) and had to turn around! But picture obtained and now RAINBOW! Also, rain. Lots of rain. And it smells very strongly, of course, like rain.

5:42pm
We’re getting SLAMMED! Nat is strangely pleased, and mutters things like “good old fashioned Midwest thunderstorm” to himself. Also, Stampede street!

5:48pm
The rain is so hard it’s vibrating the windshield!

5:54pm
The highway turns into a narrow winding road, 35mph! Crazy rainy strange forest. We pass a jewel cave.

6:00pm
MARBLE SIZED HAIL! HUGE!!! OH MY GOD. It probs dented the car! Also we’re now getting Nebraska NPR.

6:10pm
ATV on the highway!

6:24pm
WE LOVE SOUTH DAKOTA. We’re really excited just about being here, and we decide to go to Rushmore now and then return to Custer for dinner and sleeping. Custer is HELL OF CUTE and we’re not embarrassed to say it. Tomorrow morning we’ll put up an .8 or .9 near Rushmore because the granite looks SO COOL. WE ARE EXCITED ABOUT LIFE! WOO! There are sweet granite towers and bluffs just everywhere, even in town. Plus, sorry Marky, tons of open campsites and motels!

6:33pm
Nat is more bubbly and giddy than I’ve ever seen him – he’s gasping and going on about Rushmore! He claims to have no idea what’s going on in his brain, and just wants to GET THERE.

6:37pm
We pass Wrinkled Rock Campground and Nat SQUEALS and WIGGLES because we enter the National Monument Area!

7;17pm
Post-Rushmore. Oh, that Rushmore. Here are the things we heard before we went. Nick Knudsen (who is specifically not interested in my life, I should note) told us that it would be very small, and kind of disappointing. My father, another 6’4” sometimes-bearded man, told us that it would be huge and impressive. Our conclusion: A BIT O BOTH! It’s small but also impressive.
Notes:
A) The parking lot attendant, Jeff, was tattooed, long-haired, old, and rambly, and we loved him.
B) The parking lot itself is gigantic – the largest manmade THING we’ve seen probably since Portland. There are cars from every state. We’re giggly, and I wear my cowboy hat and a kind of small dress, not knowing when I got dressed that we would go to a Historical Thing with lots of judgmental Midwestern ladies glaring at me.
C) Our camera ran out of batteries on the road to Rushmore, so we stop in the nearly empty Info place to charge it. To be nice, we decide to ask the ranger behind the desk before we plug in – and he says NO. We think he’s joking at first, but he is totally serious. We point to the accessible and empty outlets next to the exhibits, and he actually says “If I let you do it, everyone will want to.” I mutter a rude sound as we exit. He is drunk with power and should be REMOVED from his mighty station.
D) I charge the camera in the bathroom! People look at me a little funny, but no one gets too mad.
E) WE SEE RUSHMORE! We take several pictures and giggle a lot. There are also chipmunks and, for some reason, mountain goats in hats.
We decide that we are Experiencing The Monument on a different plane than everyone else there! We experience it on MANY levels! We list the Levels as follows:
Level #1) Actually enjoying it because it’s cool
Level #2) Ironically enjoying it because everyone else thinks it’s so cool, when really it’s just a huge insult to the environment
Level #3) Being a rock climber, and thinking about it climbingly/geologically
Level #4) Feeling superior to everyone who is only enjoying it on Level #1, including those who have no idea who is depicted in the sculptures (a dude kept insisting that Roosevelt was Monroe, and telling his small impressionable children this) and those who are wearing oversized “WYOMING” shirts and have fat children
Level #5) Feeling bad about Level #4
Level #6) Proofreading the interpretive signs with extreme prejudice and derision (we do not feel bad about Level #6)

Anyway, we had a surprisingly awesome time at the memorial (Nat is very worried about what exactly it is memorializing), and got in about 5 good pictures before our camera re-died.

7:30pm
Back to Custer for dinner in a fine restaurant (the kind where the menu is in the font Papyrus), and then to the super-sweet Rocket Motel (ironically suggested to us by our waitress), which lived up to our most excellent expectations! We chat and blog and sleep in a huge and wonderful and squishy bed in a strange little town near a strange little mountain!

A few notes Nat took whilst Tash drove in the early morn:

Picnic tables, 3 identical minivans, Ethete Road, heavy sideroad traffic, Sand Creek Massacre Trail, minivan’s antenna has vertebrae on it! BONES! Riverton skate park! China Panda restaurant in a Quonset hut. Random flame in Riverton. Riverton is not cute. Boysen State Park and Reservoir, Poison Creek. I Hate the motor tricycles. Badwater Creek, Tough Creek, 3 tunnels! So old and probably wagons went through them! They are just hollowed out from rocks with dynamite.


11:43 Really cool Wind River Canyon – huge limestone and sandstone cliffs everywhere! More people at the turnouts than on the road.