June 29th: Another Roadside Attraction (Day 7)

Today we woke up and made a breakfast before breaking camp. After breakfast, we took the dogs for a walk along the beach at the western end of the camp. We were up early so we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves. It was very peaceful. By the time we broke camp and headed to the showers the other campers were waking up and the park was starting to come alive. We met a man named Quinton who is a professor of history at Dordt College, a small private school in Iowa. He seemed to know the area pretty well so we asked him if he had any suggestions for things to see and do on our route. He told us to drive Needles Highway in Custer state park and it turned out to be one of the highlights so far. We left Lewis and Clark Park (I just love saying "Lewis and Clark Park") and were bombarded with billboards for tourist traps all along the highway, so we finally gave up and decided to make today a roadside attraction day. The first stop was the Pioneer Auto Show ("It's as much fun as a circus!")
in Murdo, SD. They have the original General Lee from The Dukes of Hazard, Elvis' motorcycle, and a cornucopia of trash and treasure from the last 150 years . We didn’t make it through all of the 42 buildings that the show boasts, but we did make it through quite a few before heading to our next roadside attraction, Wall Drug.
The town of Wall, SD (just outside of Badlands National Park) has a huge “drug store” that has room after room of western art, gift shops, camping gear, cafes, and cowboy/Indian/giant-jackrabbit statues to pose for pictures with. Evidently the original owner built the business up from its humble beginnings in 1931 by advertising "Free Ice Water" all along the South Dakota highways. It had been a long day of driving so after a couple of buffalo burgers we decided to get a room at the Sunshine Motel instead of heading on to Rushmore. The Sunshine is owned and operated by a Vietnam veteran who is about to head back to Vietnam for a reunion with not only his fellow soldiers but also a contingent of Vietcong soldiers that they fought against. He said he has mixed feelings about this but has heard from others who have done the same that it turns out to be a pretty amazing experience. Before bed, we did some laundry and gathered up 3 boxes worth of unnecessary stuff to ship to Soldotna (70 bucks well spent on more space in the van).
We also took the dogs for a nighttime walk through the streets of Wall where we saw the strangest display of wildlife sculpture. The front and side yards of one of the houses were filled with life sized representations of every kind of animal you are likely to find in SD. It was kind of funny, not funny ha-ha but the other kind, and Squeak started barking at the animals.

More pictures for Day 7