Day 35: Good Wall and Badlands

There’s a drug store in teensy little Wall, SD, that’s so big it takes 30 minutes to find a parking spot. Mostly because every parking spot you think is available is taken by a motorcycle pulled as far up into the space as possible, thereby eliminating any shadow that may clue you in from the lane.

“Wow, bikers really love this place,” I muttered to Earl as I was punk’d out of yet another space by yet another sneaky Harley.

Then I realized it was days away from the big annual rally in Sturgis just down the road. Ah.

Wall Drug is perhaps the most misleadingly named place we have encountered. Sure, it started as a drug store back in the ’30s, but now, the actual drug store inside is maybe the size of my kitchen. The rest of the place, which is enormous, is all boot shops and souvenir shops and arcades and restaurants that seat 400 people. It’s big enough to warrant its own visitor map.

And it’s full of little surprises. Like the traveller’s chapel.

The chapel is the least crowded place in the joint, has well-insulated walls to keep out the noise, and is a welcome respite sandwiched between storefronts. It’s a good place from a break and a prayer.

I could have stayed for an hour. Earl was done after 15 seconds. She’s very much the hustle-and-bustle type.

More entertaining than the main shops is the Backyard. Earl found Mount Rushmore…again. This time with less photobombish Roosevelt.

There are fantastically random jumping fountains back there, too. Sometimes they’re choreographed to music. One review we read somewhere compared them to the fountains at the Bellagio in Vegas. Um…no.

Do you know how much cajoling it took to convince my kid to go out there and run through the stinkin’ fountain? Usually, she’s all up for getting as wet as possible, but that day, her name might as well have been Elphaba and water melted her.

“But you can run through and get as wet as you want and I won’t fuss! I’ll even run through with you! See?” as I get splattered from a stream landing by my foot.

“Nah, I’m good.”

Sigh.

She was more into mining.

For 10 bucks, they give you helmets with lights, stick you in a dark little 15×8 room with plaster rocks on the wall, and you hunt for all the gems you can possibly find—not a tall order since all the gems (brightly colored and polished) are placed on outcroppings on the wall rock, mostly at convenient kid height and none above my short little head. But Earl loved it, and that’s all that matters.

Gems in hand, we headed across the back building to the T-Rex.

What? You weren’t expecting an enormous animatronic T-Rex head next to the memorabilia shop in a tiny little town in South Dakota? Then you just don’t know Wall.

You also don’t know the 30 people that will stand around waiting for the T-Rex to “eat.” Supposedly, he does it every 15 minutes, but I decided there are guys monitoring a closed circuit camera and placing bets on how long the sucker tourists will stand there.

The answer? A long dang time.

When he finally gets “hungry”, he raises up, opens his mouth, roars, farts fog (well, not really, but where else would fog suddenly come from when a T-Rex is on the prowl?), then…stops.

Whee.

Wall Drug is brilliant in its touristy-ness. There’s something for everybody, merchandise at every reasonable price point, surprises around every corner, and heaps of photo ops.

The gorilla is missing a pinky. That freaky rabbit is my number 1 suspect. In case you were wondering.

Wall is my hero, though, for two reasons:

a) You have to play foosball to get the bouncy ball from the toy vending machine. It’s quite possibly the longest play you will ever get out of a quarter.

b) This sign. And it is enforced. The chick at the counter is on top of that.

I’d expected to stop in at Wall, grab a bite to eat, and be out in an hour headed toward Badlands. Instead, it turned into a nearly 3 hour stop.

While Wall has lots of things to describe, Badlands National Park is beyond description. Honestly, blogging this trip is teaching me that finding the words is so stinking hard.

Badlands drove that lesson home. The pronghorns were there to laugh at me.

In the middle of the plains, the earth opens up to all these colors and undulating waves of smooth and jagged rock, and you just stand there, gaping, thinking, “Wow,” over and over.

Millions of years of the planet are showcased in the layers of the badlands, eroding away at the hands of wind and water and man.

Clouds rolled around and a storm gathered to the east. The wind kicked up, then kicked up again, then again, then stepped it up to insane.

But the views were worth battling the breeze.

We did a quick walk around the boardwalk of the fossil trail.

There was the mandatory stop at the Visitor Center to let Earl get her Junior Ranger badge.

She also met the mannequin she wants to become.

Then it was off to gawk just a little more before calling it a day.

I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to find the words to adequately describe the South Dakota badlands, honestly. They were just so remarkably surprising and layered and brilliantly beautiful and photogenic.

I must go back.