We planned a day of looking at stuff as we meandered across South Dakota’s Interstate 90 until we reached the Badlands. Jack and I dragged the unsuspecting Barbara and Oliver into the Porter sculpture park first thing. Greeted by a gopher on arrival, Oliver looked suspicious and annoyed.
But he cheered right up when Wayne remembered us, and traded us t-shirts again–our shop one for two of his–and then comped all four of us into his park. I brought him a long-promised copy of Little Bookstore, and he asked how long it had taken to write. I asked how long it took him to make that huge bull that is the park’s signature nationwide. Turns out, it took us about the same length of time.
If you expand the goldfish picture to look under it, you will meet the gopher who unnerved Oliver. We remembered Wayne feeding the gophers chocolate last time we were there, but he told us they were on peanuts now. “Chocolate is bad for them, turns out. Too much carbs and sugar.” So even gophers are on the Keto diet now…
Next stop: Mitchell, because if you are hauling Brits across the States, you need to see some tacky stuff. Also, they have really good ice cream. Barbara and Oliver were suitably impressed with the idea that someone could cover a brick building with decorative corn murals and revitalize a dying economy. “Heavy price to pay,” they noted, given the traffic and the, well, corniness of it all. Remembering Farmington’s gentle dignity down by the river, plus the empty buildings everywhere, who can judge whose choices?
From the ridiculous to the sublime, we sped our little Nissan along 90 to Chamberlain, where the famous “Dignity” statue awaited at the Lewis and Clark interpretation center. The sculptor used three indigenous models to create her: a girl, a mother, and an elder.
Finally, I found out what Lewis and Clark had been doing all that time: looking for a passage to the Pacific. (Who knew?) It’s one of those things Americans feel like we ought to know, but when it comes down to it, you don’t.
And then, the Badlands. Which gobsmacked the Brits as much as we expected it to. *smirk* More on that tomorrow.
So there are a couple of things you need to know about our rag-tag band of Brits: Barbara is famous back in the UK, as in, can’t eat out without being approached for an autograph famous. Her husband Oliver is the calmest classic Englishman ever, complete with handlebar mustache, and Jack, well, y’all know Jack.
Iowa has three or four ways to cross it, the swiftest being Interstate 80. But across the bottom is a little thing called Highway 2, cleverly populated with unusual barns in a desperate attempt to get people to drive it. You know the tourism board is reaching when they tell you why a particular roof slant is “unique.”
We called the museum, as it looked like one of those places that closes if the volunteer’s granddaughter needs picked up from ballet lessons. This was fortuitous; when the volunteer heard Barbara’s enthusiasm, she offered “the works,” a tour of the home and an overview of relics collected from this corner of musical America.
Wendy Welch: Books, Yarn, Cats, Opioids 