Tidbits from Road Trip

Trip tidbits that didn’t make the blog the first time around …

One of the things we were looking forward to on our trip was a visit to Wall Drug which Cindy had visited in the 60’s on a road trip with her family. I had heard about it for years and it turned out that the anticipation was much more exciting than the actual visit. We saw our first billboard while still in western Minnesota and it promised free ice water in just 303 miles. The closer you get the more frequent the signs, and they are all really quite clever and provide a great diversion from the endless flatness of the terrain. Upon arrival we were met with a tacky, crowded set of commercial shops filled with busloads of tourists with their names and addresses hanging from their neck along with the bus number so as to be sure they all got home after shopping for all things Wall Drug. Cindy remembered it as being not as coarse and of course when she was there the interstate had not opened so it was not nearly as large or crowded. We lasted about twenty minutes before mercifully placing it in our rearview mirror. The worst part was that I didn’t even get my glass of the promised ice water!

And speaking of billboards, South Dakota seemingly has no restrictions on the location or frequency and they practically blanket the roadsides.  Some are very well done and fun to read, such as the 30 or so ads for the Firehouse Brewing Company in Rapid City.  Every ad includes an old red fire engine, some newish (1980s?) and others that appeared to be from the 1930s or even earlier.  Every one seemed to be in perfect condition and of course was painted bright red from bumper to bumper. Another set of clever billboards advertised a local Mexican restaurant:  “feed me tacos and tell me I’m pretty;” “Mexican food so good Trump would build a wall around it,” and “Mexican food, local water.”  Ha.  

North Dakota apparently limits billboards to a mile or so before freeway exits, and they also apparently have a civility campaign going on.  We saw several billboards with just two words in very large capital letters:  BE NICE - or - BE POLITE - or - BE KIND.  Given the length of our daily drives the diversions were nice, but in the end just looking at nature was preferable.  

After leaving Yellowstone and spending another night in Billings, we headed for Bismarck and arrived much sooner than we had expected.  It took only five hours instead of the six we thought it would be, so we tried to cancel our reservation so that we could drive another few hours to shorten the next day’s trip. No dice! The hotel industry has now made it impossible to be spontaneous by requiring a 48-hour cancellation. The travel industry does all it can to nickel and dime we the consumers, and we are seemingly helpless. I’ve had to change flights to Tampa twice and each time they charge $200 a passenger, no exceptions, and then if they feel like it they will also charge more - for the difference in the ticket price from when you purchased it to what the going rate is now, and there is no way to figure out the going rate!  

So we stayed in Bismarck and used our newfound time to walk a bit around the campus of Bismarck State College. It was cold and windy and there was some spitting rain, but we were thrilled to be out of the car and into fresh air and exercise. The campus is quite new and very modern and we enjoyed our excursion. That night we walked across the street to a sports bar and bellied up to enjoy the five TVs over the bar which were showing a playoff game between the Twins and Yankees. As we munched on potato skins with the works, along with the largest pours of booze in the West, we marveled at how we could be almost anywhere in the USA.  We throughly enjoyed the entire experience and left when the score was tied so that we could pretend that the Twins could actually win something important. In the morning our breakfast was sullied by discovering that they lost big time to the Yanks.

In seven days we drove close to three thousand miles averaging 425 miles a day. The car we rented, a Ford Edge, performed beautifully in all weathers and altitudes and there wasn’t a single time that I was uncomfortable driving since the seats could be adjusted in scores of ways and the air conditioning could be controlled for each half of the car so that Cindy could have it her way and I mine. Once our twenty year old Explorer gives up the ghost, we’ll think hard about getting an Edge. I seldom use cruise control, since I seldom cruise anywhere, but with these long, long stretches of highway it was a delight to set and forget. We had always been under the impression that you can usually go about five miles above the posted speed and be ok.  NOT in Montana! While nothing happened to us, our new found friend Christian from Bin 119 was pulled over for speeding. It seems that the police and highway patrol were dead set against raising the speed limit to 80 and therefore will pull you over even at 81. 

The one night stands played havoc with our exercise routines. Cindy always runs for 30-35 minutes in the morning and I always walk for an hour, but with long distances to cover, we were almost always in the car by eight or nine which left no time for routines. My canary pants still fit so I’m not too far gone, but it will take some time to get back in the groove.