When you get to a fork in the road.....

Cumulative miles  2,546

Number of speeding tickets:  1

Lesson Learned:  There are actually two species of pelicans native to the Dakotas

Number of States Visited: 9

Strap yourselves in folks – this is going to be a long one!

So, when I left off my last night, I was in Fargo, having a late dinner at Applebee’s and still rather surprised to find myself in North Dakota. Having looked at my schedule earlier in the week, I wasn’t sure I’d make it to this state, but fate intervened in the form of a severe thunderstorm, so here I was.

When I rose this morning, it was still relatively early. I weighed my options and decided to go for broke and head for Mt. Rushmore, over 500 miles west.  It would be an ambitious schedule, but I figured there wouldn’t be much to see up here, so I’d just push ahead.  I did feel a bit guilty getting in the car and starting out.  After all, I’d only seen the tiniest sliver of North Dakota.  Fargo is literally on the border.  It sits on the Red River and the other side of the Red River is Minnesota.  Following my rules, I could technically cross North Dakota off my list, but I couldn’t help feeling like I was shortchanging the state by not seeing more.

My planned route was to drop due south from Fargo, via an interstate, to Sioux Falls, then head due west, along 1-90 until I got to western South Dakota, where Mt. Rushmore is located.  The route would look like a backwards “L.”   South – then West.  As I started the southern leg, it still nagged at me that I would kinda be dissing North Dakota and not really seeing what she had to offer.  Thinking about my options, I realized that the roads in North and South Dakota and absolutely rectilinear.  They run North-South and East-West.  None run Northwest or Northeast or Southwest or Southeast.  I reasoned, then, that I could take any westward road and drop south on any southern road and still eventually end up where I wanted to go. By doing that, I get to see more of the interior of the state.  With that in my head, I jumped off at the next exit ramp, preparing to head west into unknown territory and to see the “real” North Dakota.

Imagine my surprise when I got to the top of the exit ramp and realized that the crossroad I had exited to take west was GRAVEL.  I have never in my life had the experience of moving from full interstate to backroad gravel in a quarter of a mile.  I idled at the top of the ramp and considered my options.  I remembered the words that my good friend Yogi Berra once told me: “When you get to a fork in the road – take it!”  With that encouragement, I headed west down the gravel road.

I grew up driving on gravel roads.  I know some people are uncomfortable driving on gravel and I’ve trailed behind folks who won’t go over 10 mph on them.  These roads were better than most, though; wide, level, and absolutely straight.  The posted speed limit for these roads was 55 mph.  Now friends, I promise I wasn’t reckless. I never went faster than 60. 

The trick to driving on gravel is to treat it exactly like driving on snow.  Don’t make any sudden or jerking movements while steering, don’t jam on the brakes, and if you skid, turn your front wheels into the skid.  It kind of feels like gliding. 

The country is very sparsely populated, with nothing but cornfields and beanfields on either side of the road. I was tearing across the prairie, throwing up rooster tails of dust behind me and having the best time.  I swear I drove about 150 miles on these gravel roads, keeping up a steady speed and never skidding or slipping. I also would go for miles and miles and never encounter another car.  Occasionally I would see someone else’s dust plume in the distance, but only once in the whole time did a pass another car coming in the opposite direction.

I did encounter some really incredible sites along the way.  Beautiful lakes, deep green fields, galvanized tin silos, and elegantly rusting old farm equipment of every color. I came upon a few humble churches and tiny old cemeteries on these back roads and I couldn’t help but stop.  I read stones set for WWI soldiers who didn’t make it home, infants who died when they were born, or before they turned one year, and a single stone for three brothers, all apparently bachelors.

(Vernel Undseth: Age one; Died 1906)

I kept going and came upon a very beautiful, but dilapidated one-room schoolhouse, rotting away amongst the prairie grass.  Of course, I stopped and trespassed.  Come to think about it, I trespassed a lot today. The door was open and I carefully went in, making sure the floor wouldn’t collapse under me.  The ceiling was falling in and it was full of debris and junk, but I made out the date of 1993 on the chalkboard that still hung on the wall.  Is it possible this school was still in use in 1993?   Or was it just graffiti left by some earlier trespasser?  I guess we’ll never know, it was beautiful in a sad sort of way.  I kind of felt like I was on the set of the movie Rust.

Pressing on, I passed by the Talanka wind farm, which probably had over 500 wind turbines chugging away along a windy ridge.  I stopped directly under one – the closest I’ve ever been, just to listen to the swoosh, swoosh, swoosh of its blades.  I stopped and took pictures or many of the old tin silos, thinking that I may make a photo collage of their unique shapes and coloration.

At one point I came upon a corn field that was being spray irrigated. You've seen those huge rigs on wheels that slowly move across big fields spraying jets of water. This one was close to the road and there was a rainbow in the mist it was making. I couldn't help but get out and let myself get soak sprinkled.

My travels took me through small towns (I mean really small) with downtowns that were a single block.  Gettysburg, population 1,119; Ellington, population 643; Okana, population 13.   I saw a dozen Monarch butterflies swarming in a pine tree, I saw pelicans on a pond, and at one point a bald eagle surprised me by flying up from the shoulder of the road with its unmistakable yellow feet and beak, white head, and chocolate brown feathers.  Man are they huge.

Could the day get any fuller?  I wanted to stay on backroads, but needed to make better time, so I staring using the asphalt roads, going west, then south, then west again. You can easily go 80 or 85 mph on these roads, with no cars visible all the way to the distant horizon in front of you or in back of you. At some point I crossed from North to South Dakota, but I don’t know when or where.

I got to Pierre, South Dakota in the midafternoon, the second smallest state capital by population in the nation (11,000), just behind Montpelier, Vermont (8,000). It’s on the banks of the Missouri River.  Like the Mississippi in St Paul, it’s a mere trickle here compared to what it will become.  Then the landscape abruptly changed.  It went from flat, green fields with some trees to bald, grassy rolling hills.  There was no more agriculture.  There was ranching.  The temperature soared to 88 degrees.  I had reached the badlands.

I wanted to stop at the Badlands National Park, but it was getting late, so I pressed on to Keystone, South Dakota, the town where Mt. Rushmore is.  I didn’t go to the monument, but instead stopped in country store.  I had been sketching out dinner in my head and I needed taco seasoning.  I had canned chicken, rice, black beans, soft tortillas, and an onion in my food box, so I was planned on chicken tacos.  Just needed the seasoning.

I found the campground and its very nice.  Friendly folks.  $30 bucks per night.  I made the taco’s, did a rough draft of this post and then crashed.  What a day!  I promise you (and myself) that I’m going to slow down. I’m staying two nights here and hope today will be a little more chill.

As I was finishing up and reflecting on the day and its incredible adventures, I thought about Robert Frost’s, “The Road Less Travelled” and how it ends.   

 I shall be telling this with a sigh,

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the d