American Road Trip 1: South Dakota to Iowa

Day Fourteen: The Badlands to the Middle of Nowhere

[Obviously, finding an internet location today was difficult, so I am behind in uploading my updates!]

The storm over South Dakota’s badlands was serious enough for a few to lose their tents. Mine held and I slept soundly! My early morning was spent in pursuing two families of deer and fawn through a dried slump of the Badlands, a temporary green spot in the otherwise desolate clay. They seemed careless of my presence, as did most of the other animals I encountered, from prairie dog to rabbit. That got me to thinking about how the badger or rattlesnake might treat me, so I was a bit more cautious.

In any event, the Badlands are amazing in their starkness, but I was surprised to discover how fragile they are, that the rock is wearing so quickly, that the surface is mostly a dry and crumbling clay which often collapses when walked upon. Certainly, the shale and other stone beneath is more durable as infrastructure, but this is truly an environment ready to cave in on itself—that’s why the Sturgis bikers were everywhere, on and off the paths. The ranger said to me to enjoy the area, to let its absolute silence work on you. Nowhere was there silence today. When the bikes weren’t needlessly revving their engines to hear their own echoes across the canyons, the riders were yelling to each other about the noise.

I retreated again, first on a disturbing side trip to a nuclear missile silo, one of the abandoned Minuteman I silos and control centers, the place where for a few decades, our soldiers sat strapped to chairs for 12-hour shifts in little bunkers waiting to turn keys that would begin Nuclear Armageddon. The government has left one of these missiles (de-fused, of course) in an opened silo, as well. The military-rangers there were quick to point out the myths about the silos: unlike Wargames, a soldier would never hesitate to turn the key when ordered; that even though the extensive fields of missile silos in South Dakota had been disarmed according to the START talks, the US had at least 500 more Minuteman III silos in the northern plains alone. Re-assuring. They took great pride in reminding us how many years truckers and tourists and ranchers had driven right past these silos in plain view, and who had never considered them.

Spooked a bit to meet the Cold War in person, I turned back to the Badlands for relief, and this time I went to the South Park, the one away from the main drag, operated by the Oglala Indians on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The Visitor’s Center for this end of the Badlands was quite different, revealing the mystical and environmental uses of the area for the Sioux nation. Unfortunately, though on a reservation, the US military had used this end of the park for bombing practice by the B-17s during World War II. There were, after all, no residents in the area, they claimed—because the reservation did not insist upon recorded addresses at the time. In any event, this part of the National/Oglala Park was now off-limits to tourists and hikers because of the unexploded ordinance which has polluted the region.

It’s too bad, too, because this particular area is important. Here, at Red Table and other rock shelves, the Ghost Dance movement was born and gained power. It was this movement which bolstered the final and tragic resistance of the Native Americans to US incursions at Wounded Knee, just a few miles away. I traveled there to what I was told was a somber and quiet place, virtually unmarked but for the boarded-up church seized by the 1973 resistance fighters. (Remember Leonard Peltier.)

I found the church, but by this time, I was tuned in to 90.1 FM, KILI, the Voice of the Lakota Nation. As I pulled up to the site of the Massacre, a few 20-something Lakota women were in their cars along the road, offering hand-made dreamcatchers to anyone who stopped: $30. The DJ Dawn L (DJsupastar@gmail.com) was playing a series of tribute songs to Michael Jackson (“Billy Jean” was playing at the time). This was not quite the somber experience I had expected; perhaps better that we just keep reading Dee Brown.

My detour through the town of Pine Ridge was little better. I should be happy that a Taco John’s and Subway have appeared on the Rez, but when the suburbs for the fast food enterprise are dilapidated mobile homes, roofs secured with tires, some doorways missing and replaced by hanging blankets, I wonder where our developmental balance is. An old man, likely drunk from his stagger, stepped out into the road in front of me.

KILI shifted to a discussion program on vocational education, inviting two local speakers to help the disabled find jobs. The signal for the radio faded on these two as I left South Dakota, but I was moved by their efforts, even as they explained how important it is for a parent to attend an IEP and how everything diagnosed must be on official documents. The Oglala government building I passed had so many letters missing from its sign, I could not identify its function.

Which brought me to Nebraska, the state without any roadmaps at any gas station I stopped. Town after town went by on US-20 (which I had returned to), populations mostly below 100 people, city buildings usually consisting of an agri-business depot and a saloon. Restaurants and homes, gas stations and hotels, boarded up. Cody proclaims itself on its welcome sign: “The City That Will Not Die,” and I wonder at the fatalistic cynicism of it. Ainsworth calls itself, “The Middle of Nowhere.” In that case, I suppose it’s a good idea that I chose to find Kelly State Park just a few miles from it to make camp.

It’s a strange campground, because until 15 minutes ago I was literally the only one in the park. It’s beautiful, secluded, a nice stream below me, a decent fire ring ready to go, but no one here. The two vehicles which have arrived are not campers, though—they are stopped apparently for the fishing trail which is at the dead end of the dirt road here. Too odd. Back to the Twilight Zone, but tomorrow I move into Iowa and hopefully reach Wisconsin.

Day Fifteen: From Nowhere to Cedar Falls, IA

Corn corn corn corn corn corn corn corn corn corn corn hay hay corn corn cow corn corn corn corn corn cow cow corn corn corn corn soy corn ethanol plant corn corn corn. . . .

A long road day got me out of Nebraska and half-way across Iowa. The highlight was in the morning when I stopped at the Ashville Falls project in Nebraska, an active paleontology dig of full skeletons of animals killed by the Yellowstone supervolcano. The university interns working on the site answered questions about the work, and—while it was off the main drag—it was one of the classiest operations I’ve seen. I had little idea, for instance, that Asian camels began in America and migrated, or that wolverines began in Asia. There were saber-toothed deer and a kind of giraffe and rhino here, too. Hmm. Maybe this classy operation is also playing a big joke on the tourists.

The rest of the day was a long run across US-20, an endless barrage of corn corn corn corn corn corn corn corn corn corn hay hay corn corn cow corn corn corn corn corn cow cow corn corn corn corn soy corn ethanol plant corn corn corn. . . .

Tomorrow should bring me home to Michigan.