By: Ethan Levine
7/18/03 – 7/23/03
Ah yes, we got to re-enter Nevada. I had missed it so much I was really looking forward to driving across it. Outside of Reno we stopped for pizza at this pizzeria where we struck up a conversation with this dude sitting next to us. Actually, I should rephrase that and say that this dude needed someone to talk to and decided we’d be the victims. We ended up obtaining his business card and a free tour of Reno if we wanted someone to show us around.
Afterwards we drove through nothingness to a ‘cool’ town called Battle Mountain, Nevada where we stayed for the night. The following morning, Megan and I wanted to get started early to get a lot of driving done, so we played a little trick on Marc. We set all the clocks ahead an hour during the course of the night and woke up an hour earlier. Now, you’d say, why didn’t he check his watch. Haha,  he broke it in San Francisco and didn’t have it for the rest of the trip. Let’s just say we might just do it again to get an early start. He still has no idea.
So, I was the fortunate one to drive in the morning for four hours to Salt Lake City. Let’s just say, the drive was pretty terrible. I actually went 50 straight miles with having to turn the car slightly at all through huge salt basins. Eventually, we made it to the Great Salt Lake (see Picture #1). It, uh, smelled pretty bad, lots of decaying stuff exists there. It was a pretty big lake though.
We drove into Salt Lake City which is actually a pretty city. Marc needed to go pay his bills (don’t know why he didn’t take the opportunity in California when we had some lazy days) at the nearby Borders because there’s free internet access. Megan and I ate our lunch in the main square, Temple Square (see Picture #2). We began walking around and this Mormon nun asked us if we wanted to do this free ‘historical’ tour around the square. Now, I’m no idiot or anything, and I realize that there’s a reason they offer all the religious related sites for free. One of the tenants of Mormonism is to try to convert as many people as possible to the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints. Yea, so the ‘historical’ tour had lots of Bible passages from the Book of Mormon ingrained in it. We toured all of the ‘historical’ sites that were coincidentally religious sites as well. It was actually very  informative and I was cool with it all until we walked into this room where there was a 30 foot statue of Jesus Christ and they told us to be quiet and let these loud speakers make it seem as if this 30 foot statue was talking to us. Yea, I opted not to take a picture in front of it. Don’t worry Mom, I didn’t put any contact information down.
Afterwards, we picked up Marc at the Borders and headed out towards Denver. We had a scrumptious dinner at Wendy’s on the way in Price, Utah and drove through the beautiful mountains and valleys on the way.
We stopped off in Grand Junction, Colorado. We found a pretty cheap motel for a weekend night. It was cheap for a reason. The hallways smelled like urine and the air conditioning in the room did not work very well. Well, in the morning, Marc went to complain to manager about the terrible conditions and asked for a refund. ‘Surprisingly,’ the dude didn’t grant him that, but Marc is still vying to get it erased from his credit card statement and make sure this guy’s out of a business.
The following morning we drove through the Rocky Mountains into Denver. We wanted to go to the Coors Brewery in Golden Colorado, but since it was a Sunday and it was closed, we decided to Quizno’s instead. Thereafter, we headed over to Boulder to check out the cool college town. It was raining a little bit, really the first rainfall we had experienced since July 4th in New Orleans. It’s a nice town, great place to walk around and lots and lots of shops. They also had an arts market going on which displayed lots of regional arts and crafts. We walked around for a bit there into and out of shops. Megan and I also walked up to the University of Colorado which is a pretty university. Marc couldn’t get up the hill. Eventually we all had dinner at a local restaurant called The Sink. Apparently Robert Redford used to be a janitor there back in the day. They also had a really good grilled Portobello mushroom sandwich.
Megan and I then had some of the local Coors light at one of the local pubs which sat right on a stream. Afterwards, I unsuccessfully led Marc to where we needed to be that evening in Greeley, CO. I tried really hard, but the Coors got the better of me. It was kinda funny though as I just failed miserably at leading him.
Eventually, we made it to Greeley, CO where we were going to stay at the Days Inn for the night. Marc had opted for the nicer hotel (courtesy of him) because he wanted high speed internet access. Apparently, the definition of high speed internet access in the Midwest is a data port in the phone. So, the Days Inn mistakenly said that they had one; we cancelled that room, but the Holiday Inn  next door said they had it too. Clearly, the data port in the phone was high speed internet to them, so again, Marc was extremely upset just as he had been the night before at the hotel. This time though, he successfully reduced the rate of the room to $40 because he claimed we would have stayed in the nearby Motel 6 if we had known that there was no high speed internet access. Needless to say, we had a pretty sweet expanded continental breakfast the next morning and a free USA Today. Thanks Marc!
After breakfast, we headed up North on a couple day detour from our return back east. We stopped in Cheyenne, Wyoming, the capital of Wyoming. Apparently, the last full week of July every year, a Cheyenne Frontier Days festival type thingy is held. Luckily for us, we were passing through at just the right time (see Picture #3). First we walked through this strip of stores that had been converted into a town from last century (see Picture #4). Unfortunately, as we were walking I felt something hit me. I look behind me and on my shorts is crap! Literally, a piece of crap. I deduced that someone must’ve thrown it at me because I was wearing my Yankees hat. It  couldn’t have just fallen out of the sky from a bird because it was too much and the angle just wouldn’t have worked. I cant believe someone would do that, let alone go through holding it in order to throw it at me. For a Yankees hat? C’mon. It’s not like Wyoming and the Yankees have some kind of rivalry or anything. Wyoming doesn’t even have a professional sports team. Their population rivals Essex county. I’m serious. Wyoming has a population of 250,000. My county has more people in it that Wyoming. Now, most of the people are real nice and all, but that’s uncalled for. I quickly wiped it off. Well, with the rodeos and stuff going on around, my shorts’ smell just kinda blended in.
Well, I wasn’t going to let that phase me. We walked over to the Indian Village. Now, I’m not trying to politically incorrect here. The place was not called the Native American Village or even a tribe’s name, but the Indian Village. That wasn’t it. As we were walking over to what appeared to be a show (see Picture #5), the guy told us that, “Yea, the indians are gonna be putting on a show in a few minutes.” Hmmm….appears as if political correctness hasn’t quite hit Wyoming yet.
After walking around there, we went into the park and bought a couple of tickets to the rodeo that afternoon. We picked up some way overpriced lunches and sat down next to these two Western looking men (the cowboy hats clued us into that). They were real friendly making fun of the fact that I was from NJ. It’s ok, he was from Oklahoma. Seriously, though, they were real cool and friendly. I’ve found that talking to local people (ok, in the Midwest, Oklahoma is local to Cheyenne, WY), I’ve been able to gain a greater understanding of the various cultures all over the United States and sometimes get some advice and hints along the way.
We eventually headed into the rodeo (see Picture #6) which was a lot of fun. We saw some Bull Riding (see Picture #7), Steer Roping, Bronco Riding with and without saddles, Calf Roping (see Picture #8) and Steer Wrestling. Honestly, I wasn’t all too sure how the scoring went for all of the events that were judged by style and not time, but it was still a lot of fun to watch
We then headed up north towards the Black Hills. Fortunately, we had made a reservation in advance (in the North, cheap rooms are harder to come by in the summer because there are a lot less motels and a lot of national park sites make it  more difficult) in Newcastle, Wyoming, about an hour outside of Mount Rushmore. On the way, we basically passed through nothing. On the way, we passed through little towns that made Nocona, Texas look like a metropolitan area, like Lost Springs (see Picture #9). I question what the minimum population is in order to register something as a town. I mean, my house at home when all of us are there has a larger population than this ‘town.’ Well, Wyoming has a population of 250,000, guess they cant get too picky.
Eventually, we made it to where we had reserved a room for the night, Newcastle, Wyoming. It was a pretty standard 3,000 person town in the middle of nowhere. We got in pretty early, so Megan and I decided to check out the local bar. Wow, this place gets little to no business. We chose the least sketchy of the three bars on the main drag and when we got in, it was just the bartender and what appeared to be her boyfriend. We were just chilling there having a couple of drinks and actually chatting with the two that were there. They were pretty cool and were trying to give us some advice as to what to do in the Black Hills. Well, we did get slightly worried when we found out the guy came to Wyoming because he was in a little trouble with the law. Fortunately, it was just for some illegal gambling stuff.
Then, these two other guys came in, one probably in his mid-30s and the other probably in his 50’s, the older one clearly intoxicated. They began playing some pool and we  continued chilling. At one point, the older dude started scratching Megan’s back because he saw she had an itch. At that point, I went to use the restroom, abandoning her. She didn’t appreciate that. Then things started to get interesting. The bar’s owner came in and began accosting the older man about a $20 bounced check in November. He grabbed the older man and threw him against the bar, breaking his necklace. While yelling at him, the older guy threw a punch at the owner, throwing the owner backwards. Later, he claimed that he hadn’t punched him, his arm accidentally moved. Haha. The owner continued to yell at him telling him to get the hell out of his bar. As the older guy was walking backwards to the door, the owner finished it all off by shoving him and the older guy fell down backwards on his butt, sliding towards the door. It was a pretty exciting scene. It was like pay-per-view for free. At that point, Marc was due to pick us up, and Megan and I quietly left thanking them for the evening’s entertainment. So cool, a bar fight in Wyoming!
Afterwards, we headed to bed, in the process though, we tackled Marc and tickled him to death. That was fun.
The following morning, we headed towards the Black Hills and South  Dakota. I had my doubts about South Dakota, but we had a bunch of things lined up for our visit there. First off, was Mount Rushmore. We got to take a nice scenic drive through the Black Hills, passing the Crazy Horse Monument. It’s funny, they don’t do a very good job concealing it because we just saw it driving on the road. They actually charge $19 per carload to just see it. Yea, we stopped on the side of the road for pictures. When we got to Mount Rushmore, they were gonna charge us $8 to park right there. We outsmarted them; we parked the car one quarter of a mile down the hill and walked up and into it for free. It was quite cool (see Picture #10, see Picture #11) and we got to see it for free.
We then headed towards the Badlands National Park. On the highway, every 200 feet, there was a sign for a place called Wall Drug, a famous drugstore in Wall, South Dakota. In the 1930’s, they figured they could easily draw travelers going to see Mount Rushmore and the Badlands, by advertising free ice cold water on the nearby highways. The gimmick was so successful, that they have blossomed into this one block long tourist trap (see Picture #12). It’s a bit  more tasteful than South of the Border in South Carolina, just a bit though. They even give you free bumper stickers to help advertise the tourist site. And they still managed to make me spend $11 there somehow. Oh well, looks like I was another sucker.
Wall, South Dakota was located at the entrance to the Badlands. The Badlands is a national park where we could try out using the National Park Pass. We got much smarter after the Grand Canyon though, as we erased the red check and one of the signatures on the card and Megan signed her name there. Sure enough, they asked us for a photo ID and the new signature worked well enough to gain us free access to the park, so smooth. The Badlands is a pretty park, that had a scenic drive right through the eroded rock formations (see Picture #13). We even took a little walk off the trail where we did a little climbing on the rocks (don’t worry, we checked with the Park Ranger whether or not that was allowed first) (see Picture #14). It was a good time.
We then headed towards the Eastern part of the South Dakota passing into the Central Time zone. We stopped off for dinner in this little town called Chamberlain, where we found some interesting signs like a motel mentioning that imaginary friends were allowed to stay free and another sign announcing the local American Idol winner (see Picture #15). The Subway restaurant was pretty safe at least.
We eventually made it to Mitchell, South Dakota where they are famous for the Corn Palace (see Picture #16). It’s a building made entirely out of corn. ‘Unfortunately,’ we were unable to go inside because it had closed about 10 minutes prior to our arrival. Oh well, at least we got to see the outside. Funny though, I wonder how they rationalize the brick foundation being derived from corn.
We finally made it into Sioux Falls, SD for the evening where we parked ourselves at the local Motel 6. I’ll tell you though, it was much harder getting cheap rooms in the North than it was in the South; I guess the North is just a bigger tourist attraction during the summer. We passed out pretty quickly, knowing that  we had a long day of driving ahead of us.
The next day was just driving on the itinerary. We were in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and we wanted to get to Saint Louis, Missouri. Now, to the common person, that means absolutely nothing. Believe me, I would have had no concept of driving time before this trip too. Well, that equals a little over 600 miles, a nice little stroll around the corner. Between the two, there’s really not all too much except a couple of big name cities, Sioux Falls, Iowa; Omaha, Nebraska, Kansas City, Missouri/Kansas. The interstate only traveled through Iowa and Missouri, going right along the Missouri river. In order to peak our interests, we decided to take small detours for about 5-10 minutes into Omaha to say that we had been in Nebraska and into the Kansas side of Kansas City to say we had been to Kansas. Other than that, it was pretty much the most boring drive of the trip (I’d say our drive from Dallas to Las Vegas, NM would have been except we had the exciting adventure of getting a speeding ticket!).
Anyways, we finally pulled into Saint Louis. I guess I’d figure I’d conclude this  update at this point in time because finally the roads to nowhere led us to a big city that we were going to stop in on the Eastern half of the U.S. and our drives between large cities wasn’t going to be as long anymore. Also, I figure that whole Gateway Arch in Saint Louis kinda signifies something too. Also, this is already getting fairly long. But you’ll all have to wait to find out how Saint Louis went in my final update.
Thus concludes our long drives through the desert, mountains and prairies. I’m not so sad that they’re over, but we found a way to see some pretty cool and exciting things along the way. We got less than a week left on this trip and I’m hoping the final stretch will prove to be fun too.
Hope everyone is doing well!
Ethan
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