Our last morning in Bozeman went slow as honey, and just as sweet. We walked around downtown and found a good camping-skirt, the Roadfood book we’ve been coveting, and made some friends here and there. I talked to Amy, who was happy to hear that we’re in "Mantana." Man-tana, indeed. Nice boots, boys. Nice sideburns. We like it here.
We closed up Chris and Emily’s house, filled up on ice and groceries, got some ice cream before meeting up with the 90 again. Icy treats were welcome respite from the Hades-style heat we’ve encountered during most of our roadtime thus far. Amanda has the lyrics to "Highway to Hell" stuck in her head, and said we might as well be on it: "it’s hot enough for us to be headed to hell," she said this morning as the thermometer rose above 90.
Rolling across Montana is like taking the train to eye-candyville. I’m not just talking about the boys, either. The hills roll along and shift and change: green, brown, parched-wheat; soft, round, craggy, small, tall; bare, tree-lined, rocky, cow-speckled. As the landscape shifts to quiet plains east of Billings, something inside of me quiets down a little, too. We say "cows" when we pass them, and Vesta stirs from her special homemade perch to growl and lunge at the window. She’s a funny girl, that Vesta.
We stopped for some gas at the Kum-n-Go.
Met some folks from Jersey at a rest stop someplace.
Ate pesto, cheese, and tomato sandwiches for dinner.
Amanda made up a new name for my friend Todd Zeranski in New York (sorry about the phone tag, Toddler, we’ll connect soon, I promise): T-Zer. Amanda says that’s your rap name, bro.
Making up I-tunes playlists, singing aloud. Snugging a little scruffy mutt. Watching with attention the ways our inner landscapes mirror the outer ones. Forgetting all about Hades as we roll up all sticky-like to the site of the battle at Little Big Horn. We didn’t go in, though. I guess Custer had a thing about dogs.
Instead, we drove through the Crow and Northern Cheyenne reservations on the 213. Beautiful, clean, quiet land. Tidy prefab homes. Again the question, what would it be like?
We drove till late, through hundreds of miles of not-much-in-the-way-of-human-life-ness. Suddenly there appeared a strange fenced happening to the side of the road, and we saw, out there in the middle of noplace in the corner of eastern Wyoming, several missles lined up, ready for launch. Soon after, we passed a stash of Halliburton plants, mining for Bentonite… coincidence? we thought not.
Eventually we stopped for the night in Sturgis, South Dakota. Because we are biker chicks. Because we were exhausted. Because we wanted to get biker chick tank tops in the morning, after a restful sleep. We asked some locals for a good camping spot, and a sweet gentleman with a wad of chaw in his lip told us about a great place on national forest land. "Go this way," he said, pointing to the right-ish, "then take a dirt road that way for four miles, then go this way about two miles. You can’t miss it." Those country directions turned out great, and soon we found ourselves unloading our gear at the Black Bear Lake Campground, watching heat lightning off in the distance.
We dove into those tents so, so ready to relish a good night’s sleep. And we slept great, just wonderfully, until the thunderstorm-of-the-year rolled on in over the Black Hills and across the plain where we’d set up camp. My tent was flapping and shaking, the sky was cracking open, and before I had a chance to orient myself to this new reality, I heard Amanda outside in the din. "Em Gilbert! I need the car keys. My tent is going crazy in the wind and I cannot sleep."
Vesta and I joined her in the Element awhile, waiting out most of the storm and laughing as we watched Amanda’s tent undulating as the wind ripped through it. I went back to the puddle that was my tent, and zonked out till morning, while poor Amanda got gnawed by mosquitoes in the back of the rig and then crawled back into her tent early in the morning. See the aftermath:
Today we were up and at ‘em Sturgis-style, did some shopping at the swanky t-shirt tents around town, drove to Rapid City and down to pay some quick respects to our forefathers at Mt. Rushmore. Then, hit Wall Drug before exploring those lovely Badlands. South Dakota is so full of gems, I could easily and happily spend a week exploring all of those activities advertised on billboards along I-90. The billboards implore us to "discover" various ghost towns, reptile petting zoos, creeks with gold to mine, strange little museums, buffalo burgers, saddle stores, etc.
We’re road-sticky and our clothes are dirty, and thinking a bed might feel real good tonight, so we’ve lined up a room at Motel 6 in Mitchell. Motel 6 likes dogs, so we like Motel 6. It’ll be great to shower, get a real dinner (even if that means chain-style), and wake up in the same town as Corn Palace. Sounds like heaven.
xoxo.
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