Road Trippin'

1200 miles into Road Trip No.1(yes, miles - get with the program!), and we are overnighting in the small town of Oacona, South Dakota (population 390.  And one snake.).  Road trippin' pros we are becoming, with experiences to tell the grandchildren as we are rockin' on the porch sucking on a cobb pipe. Well the pipe might be a bit fanciful but I saw a whole lot of them today in a museum, so they now feature in the blog! What have we learned thus far?

Sign in Medora, ND.

1) That Betty Lou, our GPS, is our best friend. She has steered us to from Fargo to here without a hitch, and never misses a beat when we miss our turnoff - so polite is Betty Lou.  In fact, we can't believe how polite the general populace is here.  I don't know where the 'pushy Americans' are that we hear all about, but they ain't in the mid west, that's for sure.
2) That the mid-west has some mighty fine golden oldies radio stations.  And the land is so damn flat that you can go for miles before they fade.  And the lyrics we have been singing for years and years at home suddenly make sense cause we are in America and that's what all the songs are about.
3) That jerk chicken, catfish, buffalo burgers and sweet potato fries are maaghty faan food.  But salads are sometimes real difficult to come by.  And washing it down with a Shirley Temple, a Root Beer, a real lemonade or cherry coke is just peachy! And coffee is best as just coffee - no foam, no swirls, no demi-semi-shot-half-caf-latte-with a twist. Just coffee. For 75c. With half-and-half. And the waitresses wear jeans or jean shorts and white t-shirts and an apron, just like in the movies.  And they come round and ask you if you want pie or ice-cream after your dinner.  And the pie is DAMN good, most of the time.

Bikes parked up in Spearfish, SD.

4) That fellow travellers seem to be either staunch-ass bikers with huge Harleys and expressions that swear at you without even saying anything, or the blue-rinse brigade with their 5th wheelers (large caravans) anchored onto massive Ford trucks. And 99.5% of them are American because foreigners are a rare breed in these here parts. Except for all the waiting and serving staff, who all seem to have come from Eastern Europe for the summer.
5) That this country is so incredibly vast and so incredibly diverse that there are no stereotypes, hard as we try, and the difference between New York city and and Spearfish might as well be planetary, because they sure as hell can't be the same country, can they?

The world's largest buffalo
Jamestown, ND.

6) That if you walk along a road at night you might find a snake! Which we just did coming back from Al's Diner tonight.  And prairie dogs live in huge communities, but they all seem to get along just fine (and they are so cute!). And buffaloes are a myth because try as we might, we haven't managed to see a real one yet - we've seen the poop, the hoofprints, tufts of hair on a signpost,  the bones, stuffed ones, carved ones and soft toy ones, but no REAL ones.  Grrr.

Anyway, that's the sum total of our road experience thus far.  Tomorrow we cross out of the Dakotas into Iowa.   Thank you Dakotas - you've been a blast :)

To see more photos of what we got up to today on the road (and in the air - we went up in a helicopter!), please click here.