Dispatches from Crazytown

May 30, 2005

Dispatch from Wall Drug, South Dakota

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Katie and I left Walla Walla on Saturday in an enormous Budget rental truck. We are bound for her hometown of Chicago, 2000-some miles to the east.

Yesterday, driving through the Black Hills of South Dakota at the height of Memorial Day weekend, we deemed it appropriate to finally visit one of our nation’s most recognizable monuments: Mount Rushmore.
Maybe it would be more impressive if its image weren’t so ubiquitous in popular culture, or if it weren’t surrounded by plaques telling you how awesome it is. As it stands, Mount Rushmore seems smaller in real life, and a little bit silly.
Apparently, the monument is supposed to remind me of the unique values all Americans hold sacred and to celebrate the ideals upon which our nation was founded. I’m not sure how the construction of a bizarre posthumous personality cult around our heads of state (no pun intended) is consistent with American values, but I’ll admit that I didn’t read all the plaques (there’s a lot of them).

Rushmore may have been a bit of a letdown, but anyone travelling along interstate 90 should be sure to go the extra 80 or so miles to visit Wall Drug in Wall, SD. Admittedly, there weren’t as many drugs available as I was hoping, but there was a fiberglass jackalope you can ride. Wall Drug starts advertising with highway billboards hundreds of miles before you hit the exit, things like “Come for the free ice water, stay for the crazy shit we’ve got lying around all over the place,” so that by the time you get there, you feel you need to stop just to be polite.
You won’t be sorry, though. It’s a pharmacy. It’s a diner. It’s an amusement park. It’s a museum. You could spend days in this place and still discover something new. Unfortunately, you become overstimulated and somewhat frightened after only fifteen minutes or so.

Loud, tacky, and always trying to sell you something. Now there’s a monument to American values, and they didn’t even bother with a plaque.