After surviving the corn, I got back on a real highway, I90, and continued to head West.  The temperature rose, the moisture evaporated and the corn gave way to fields of dry grass.  The only crop was wheat and large bails lay in the fields next to the road.  Occasional patches of trees formed the skyline where their roots could reach water deep below the surface. 

This was the driving I wanted: moving fast down an open road, with a mind cleared by the land.  I stopped at every scenic overlook to see the terrain and hear the grass crunch beneath my boots.  The sun would warm my face and I'd say to no one, ``Damn, this is a beautiful country.''

On the side of the road I noticed advertisements for a place called Wall Drug.  According to these ads, Wall Drug has everything the heart can desire: sunscreen, cowboy hats, ice cream, guns, dinosaurs, free ice water for all and free coffee if you are a honeymooner, veteran, priest, truck driver or, strangely, a hunter.  As I continued, the billboards drifted past.


See the Singing Cowboys at Wall Drug!


Wall Drug!  Only 300 miles to go!


Beware the Mighty T-Rex, only at Wall Drug!


Wall Drug!  Only 200 miles to go!


Wall Drug used to be a nothing stop in nowheresville until the owner's wife got the idea to advertise.  Everywhere.  For 500 miles along I90, greater than the width of many countries, there are billboards for Wall Drug.  They also have gimmicky ads at wildly distant locations in other countries and continents.  The farthest is at the South Pole, saying: Wall Drug!  Only 9,333 miles to go!

I reached this Mecca of the central states and had my first experience with roadside America.  Though I drove in isolation on I90 all day, people filled every space in Wall Drug.  The place is the tourist equivalent of a perpetual motion machine, able to generate more visitors from the visitors it already has.

And what the billboards of Wall Drug promised, Wall Drug delivered.  It is a micro Disneyland, complete with Western Town recreation, mini Mt Rushmore, and -- how could the billboards fail to mention this -- an     eight-foot tall statue Jackalope with a saddle on the back so you can ride atop it.  To get to any of these delights you pass through mazy hallways adorned with hundreds of photographs from an 1800s America.  At the end of one of these, an animatronic T-rex head peers over a wall and roars.  It is cheap and hokey and the delight of every child who sees it.

I bought sunscreen from a pretty girl in the old, original drug store, examined a wall of stuffed animal heads and a full buffalo, considered buying cowboy regalia, watched an old leather worker perform his craft, had a free glass of ice water (one of the 20,000 daily given out) shot a BB gun at tin, pop-up bank robbers and paid a quarter to hear unintentionally frightening robot cowboys sing.

I would have stayed longer, but I had an appointment with four men at the end of the day and there was much driving left to do.  As I drew near the edge of South Dakota, the Black Hills rose and forests overtook the dry land.  I left I90 and went up along a windy road to meet the presidents on the mountain.

I pulled in the parking lot thinking I knew what I would see: Rushmore, the apex of American tackiness.  The result of a country that, in trying to immortalize these great men, destroyed the landscape, trivialized their accomplishments and made them look like commuters on the subway during rush hour.

But the real Rushmore is so much better.

The entrance is a corridor with pillars flying the flags of all fifty states with their entry date into the Union inscribed at the base.  I recognized shamefully few of the flags other than that of my native state and the Hawaiian flag from where `Noelani' hails.  Her flag makes its colonial roots obvious and I overheard a number of tourists express surprise to see the British colors flying here. 

At the end of the corridor you see the carved faces of the presidents on the mountain framed by the flags of their country.  The figures are smaller and farther away than they appear in images.  Contrary to the tackiness I expected, they fit the mountains as though they are not the work of man but an unusual geological occurrence.  In the original plan for the Black Hills, each suitable peak was to be carved into a monument for an American hero.  You would wander through the region and look into the eyes of Susan B. Anthony and Benjamin Franklin along with the presidents.  But for cost and time this never happened. 

The National Park Service constructed a hiking path around the front of the mountain so that tourists could walk and see the presidents from different sides.  This I did, wandering slowly and taking photographs.  I eventually bumped into an older man after we eyed each other's cameras.  We got to talking and he told me his experience as a helicopter pilot during the Vietnam war and his current work as a semi-retired cattle rancher.

As the night drew on, people gathered at an outdoor stadium underneath the heads of the presidents in preparation for the night-time lighting ceremony.  On the stage a troop of boy scouts raised the American flag, and the audience said the pledge of allegiance -- something I had not done since my days in high school.  But, as with most childhood indoctrinations, the rhythm and the words came as soon as the first line began:


After that, the Park Service showed a film on America.  There were many like this I had seen before, with sweeping shots of America's impressive and varied landscape and stories of her history, but this time I fell for it.  I felt a love for the land of America the way I hadn't before. 

I don't know what caused this feeling, but Mt Rushmore's remote location certainly helped the impact it had.  Five hundred miles earlier is only the magnificently unmagnificent Corn Palace.  Then for four hundred miles there is nothing on the great terrain until you reach Wall Drug -- a place so busy and commercial that when you enter Rushmore its quiet serenity is overpowering.

I had hoped that the road trip would help me rediscover what America means to me after all that she and I have gone through in our years apart.  2003 to 2006 were not easy years for her or I and I felt a confused connection to the land of my birth.  While I love London, there is no way to escape the constant awareness that there I am an outsider -- and the role of eternal expatriate is a tiring one.  At Mt Rushmore, chanting the pledge and singing the anthem, I felt I belonged in a group.

And the end of the lighting ceremony, the Park Service called the veterans in the audience to the stage.  There, the crowd publicly thanked them for serving our country.  I saw on the stage the man I had spoken to earlier  -- and I thanked him with the rest.

I left that holy American shrine feeling confused and uncertain.  On the way out, I stopped into the cafe and noticed that they sold post-card-sized flags of the world's countries.  Having never bought a flag before, I walked out with two.  I crossed them over the dashboard of my car: one for the United States and one for the United Kingdom.  I drove on, unsure which was home.

 

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Copyright © 2006 Wellington Grey


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