Roadtrip Second Half Report

There is a popular map of the world that NASA publishes of the entire world at night. You can see the outlines of the continents as cities light up the darkened earth. Upon close inspection of the USA, there is a distinct line in the middle of the country. If you look east, there are large clusters of lights next to large clusters of lights. If you look west, there are sporadic pinpoints, until the solid sheet of light that makes up the California coast. There are not many people in this middle area that make up the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains. This was the second part of the road trip.

The rural nature is obvious. Kadoka, SD, the closest large town to the South Dakota Badlands has a whopping 5 hotels. Gas stations on the interstate are separated by 40 miles or more. You’d think you couldn’t get any smaller, but then you hit Lost Spring, Wyoming, population 1. Yes, one, lone person. Literally, you miss it in a blink as it is merely a sign next to a house. One can only imagine what sort of industry can be sustained by a population of 1. In fact, the population itself isn’t even stable. It needs at least two.

Some small cities are able to profit on being a tourist trap. Wall, SD is one of these places. The world’s largest drug store is in Wall, covering a city block. But when you walk in, you quickly realize that this is no ordinary drug store. A robotic T-Rex next to the gem sluice roars as you walk to the restrooms. Billboards advertising for Wall Drug start all the way in Minnesota, and there are subsequent ones at least every ten miles. The first few billboards scream of “tourist trap!” especially when they tout their media exposure on Oprah. But when that is all you see for the next 300 miles, you wonder, “is that all that’s out here?” By the time you reach Wall, you feel obligated to at least stop in and take a look at the Western Orchestra, made out of wax figurines. If you’re wondering, yes, they will fill your prescriptions too.

The Bonneville Salt Flat was eerie. It was flat and white. In most of my travels, I have visited cities or natural parks that have some topology – mountains, trees, lakes, valleys. The salt flats are formed when large deposits of salt water evaporate, leaving behind miles and miles of salt that follows the natural curvature of the earth. Even Kansas, scientifically proven to be flatter than a pancake, cannot compare to the pure flatness of the salt flats. It is white for as far as the eye can see. The salt crystals are huge, formed in its natural environment. But what makes it eerie is that it is dead. Death Valley, by its namesake, is dead, but every year, after a spring shower, wild flowers shoot up for a few short weeks and spread their seeds before succumbing to the brutal environment. Death Valley is called that because life does not usually grow. But nothing can grow on salt. The flats are eerie because there is no choice for life.

What amazes me the most about America is the amazing extremes the country has to offer. Twenty-four hours after the salt flats, I drove through the San Joachim Valley of California, home to some of the best fruit crops. At the Casa De Fruta store, there were dried mangos, kiwis, strawberries, cherries, apricots, along with a dozen different nuts roasted a dozen different ways, such as tequila walnuts, chili pistachios, and guacamole almonds. But be careful. This too is a tourist trap. After being welcomed by the parking lot peacock, you can go to Casa de Restaurant for meals, Casa de Sweets for candy, and Casa de Choo Choo for the kid that lives in all of us.

Thus I arrived at my destination, having visited majestic mountains and urban jungles, harsh deserts and fertile farmlands. I feel rested and full of memories of people, places and things. My favorite moment was staring at the sky in the Grand Tetons, seeing the Milky Way and thinking how we are being whipped around the galactic core at thousands of miles per second and the only thing keeping us from flying off into oblivion is a force called gravity. Then I fell asleep. My friends along the route, thank you for your hospitality; my country, thank you for sharing your beauty; and my car, thank you for not overheating.