Road Trip - Day 2
It was way too early when we started this morning. Not that it was really that early (8 AM) but after a long drive from Atlanta to St. Louis all you want to do is sleep in to prepare for a 14 hour drive. We found a QuikTrip and loaded up on coffee and breakfast sugar (read: those chocolate donuts you shouldn’t eat but love to). After an hour of driving and finishing my coffee I decided that I needed to go back to sleep. So I did and slept from Columbia, MO until we passed Kansas City.
We continued up through Kansas and into Iowa (surprised me too). We hit Nebraska and headed just East of Omaha. I saw the buildings and thought to myself, “Well, there goes Omaha.” I put on August and Everything After by Counting Crows and Stephen and I discussed that all of the credit card companies are mainly based out of Omaha. People owe lots of money to those companies. Afterwards I looked to see if I had Springsteen’s Nebraska album but unfortunately, I don’t. I’m getting it when I make it back to Alabama.
We entered South Dakota and stopped at a welcome center so I could use the restroom. I wandered the tourist brochures and a sweet old lady gave me a map and told me the highlights of what to see. We merged onto I-90 in Sioux Falls, SD and prepared for a long, slow, and windy drive across South Dakota. For the record if you ever have the choice to either drive through South Dakota or Kansas choose South Dakota. It’s really a gorgeous landscape.
I imagined what it would be like to travel through as an earlier settler. What kind of dangers and adventures I would have encountered. I totally would have had a gun too. I would have killed dinner and then played guitar around the camp-fire. Horse-drawn carriages have been replaced with RV’s.
One thing I thought was funny was a sign, hand-made, that said, “South Dakota rejects Animal Rights Activists!” Take that PETA! They just called you out.
It was a really nice and peaceful drive. At one point during the trip I was asked to test out the DVD player so I watched the first disc of The Boondocks (Season 2). We stopped at Wall Drug (a legendary piece of Americana) and I thought about the American Dream. What is the American Dream now? Something I’m sure I’ll continue to think about for a while. You should read the story on their website about how it started. It’s quite a remarkable piece of American Dream history. I got a few things from there and then we got back in the car to head to our final destination: Rapid City.
I’m in one of the only rooms left in town according to our hotel clerk and the wireless form of internet is spotty. I’m going to try and upload some photos but we’ll see how that goes. If they don’t get up tonight I’ll be sure to upload them when I get to Montana tomorrow.
Tomorrow morning is going to be fun. I’m going to see Mt. Rushmore. Expect pictures.
Soundtrack for the 14 hour drive:
Outkast
Boston
Bone Thugs
Hello
Robert Earl Keen
Counting Crows
Weezer (again)
Shooter Jennings
and much more that i can’t remember.
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