Day 7: South Dakota

I don't think the internet has been brought to South Dakota yet, so I haven't had any access the past several days.  I'll try to start adding individual posts for each day now while I have the chance.

Day 7 - Monday, August 9, 2010

Typical scene during our drives these past couple days

Cornilius, the Corn Palace mascot

Breakfast at the hotel was only served until 9, and we wanted to get an early start toward our final destination of the day, the Badlands National Park, so we set the alarm for 7:45 this morning.  After the meal, we drove down I-90 for an hour before reaching our first stop, Mitchell, South Dakota, home of the world’s only Corn Palace, a building dedicated to displaying large murals made entirely of corn.  There are a number of murals on the inside which have been preserved for years, but the art adorning the outer walls of the building are changed every year to fit a theme for the season.  We did a walk through the building, browsed the gift shop, watched the movie, and took the mini tour before heading out. When we got hungry we made a stop at Al’s Oasis, since it was advertised on billboards so heavily for the past hundred miles of the interstate.  It was tasty and featured 5 cent cups of coffee, the same price they offered when they opened in the late 1800s.

The Dakota Inn.  I hate this place.

Allen wasn’t able to book any Mariott hotels in South Dakota this week because of the crowds coming in for the Sturgis Bike Rally, so I had booked a night at the Dakota Inn in Kadoka because it was cheap, right near the Badlands, and available at the time.  We were a little nervous about what this random place would be like, and unfortunately it turned out way worse than we anticipated.  We arrived at the Dakota Inn which looked sketchy from the outside to say the least.  When we got inside, the lobby looked pretty dirty, the phone was ringing off the hook, and no one was to be seen.  Eventually after we rang the bell multiple times and waited several minutes, an elderly man came out of the back room.  I introduced myself and he looked at his note cards, and then informed us that he didn’t see my name on his notecards, which means we didn’t have a room.  Allen noticed my name on a piece of paper sitting on the table and pointed that out.  Apparently that didn’t matter, my name wasn’t on his notecards and we didn’t have a room.  I said I had my email confirmation with me.  Apparently that didn’t matter, my name wasn’t on his notecards and we didn’t have a room.  I tried to use logic and common sense, but that did not work on him, as he appeared to be senile or just plain insane.  He agreed with me that my reservation had been made, but kept informing us that reservations weren’t important, because he no longer had a room for us.  After a while, he asked us to leave.  

We were somewhat dumbfounded about what had just happened after we left, but tried to keep our composure and find another hotel to stay in.  We called up a couple, but realized that because of how small the nearby towns were and because of the ongoing Sturgis Bike Rally, we wouldn’t be able to find anything nearby.  We decided to look in Pierre, since it was the state capital and presumably a large city, and found a Super 8 Motel with a vacancy.  Unfortunately it was 90 miles back in the opposite direction, and we even had to travel back to Central Time Zone to get there.  It was only a matter of time until jet lag would set in.

Even in the middle of nowhere, beer is never far away

Pierre seemed even more in the middle of nowhere than any of the other cities we’ve been in, and we found out that even though it’s the capital of South Dakota, it has a lower population than Bellmore. Luckily there was a sports bar down the block from the hotel, so we entertained ourselves with some alright food, cheap drinks, and a couple games of Big Buck Hunter.






Miles traveled today: 302 miles
Miles traveled total: 2,275 miles
States traveled: 9