SOUTH DAKOTA ROAD TRIP

In August, 2008, I drove from Los Angeles north through Utah to Highway 80 and across to Missouri. Without planning, I discovered what Chapter 2 describes as the Wyoming Basin -
"Complex geographically, it serves as a western peninsula of the Great Plains and has allowed millions of east-west travelers to circumvent the Rockies' more rugged stretches." (p.23) Having driven Interstate 70 through the Colorado Rockies the year before, I was well aware of my Scion's 1.4-liter engine's limitations. Interstate 80 across southern Wyoming seemed flat, and, just as the book described, "Travelers are unaware of the high elevations through which they are passing." (p.23) At the time, all I knew was that I didn't have to drive in the far right lane.

Returning home, we drove north to Interstate 90 and traveled across Iowa, South Dakota, and Wyoming, then down the I-15 through Utah to California. It was the summer before the 2008 election, and it was fun to see which candidates' signs dominated different regions. Gas was over $4 a gallon when I left, and after traveling much of what I now know to be the Empty Interior and Great Plains and Prairies, it seemed to me there was abundant open space to develop energy alternatives. The sun blared non-stop in the deserts and the prairie winds acted as a natural air-conditioner. How about solar panels across the Southwest and windmills from the Dakotas to Texas?

My mom read the Little House on the Prairie books to me when I was little. I remember thinking Ma Ingalls was dumb because she insisted on settling in South Dakota "so her daughters could be near civilization" rather than continuing on to Oregon, as Pa and Laura wanted. I loved Oregon, and never had any desire to visit South Dakota. In fact, I had met only one person from South Dakota in my life.

I was pleasantly surprised. We saw rainbows stretching across the prairie on a scale of vastness I could never have imagined. The Badlands' haunting winds and eery land formations evoked images of terrified Indians trying to outmaneuver the U.S. Army just before Wounded Knee. In Custer National Park, we had to wait almost an hour for a small herd of buffalo to cross the Wildlife Loop Drive. A guy on a Harley (our timing was great-we were in the Black Hills the same weekend as the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally) tried to drive through the middle of the herd, only to have a large bull chase him for a distance. Mount Rushmore inspired patriotism, until, with a little research, I realized they began carving up the sacred hunting and burial grounds of the Black Hills just fifty years after displacing the Sioux. And the Crazy Horse monument, still unfinished, is immense. What is it with South Dakotans carving human faces into their mountains? They are beautiful sculptures, but it almost seems to violate some ancient code about graven images. What if El Capitan was John Muir's face? We'd have the Nixons, Reagans, Clintons, and Bushes searching for mountains like they hunt out locations for their presidential libraries.

Regional Landscapes of the United States and Canada, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2009.