As We Lie in Fields of Gold

Day 16:

Man the roads in the Black Hills are steep. I have a decently powered minivan. Now that you've stopped snickering, I can tell you that I've rarely had the thing kick into passing gears even when I'm actually passing. Not so here.

It was Sahara-hot again today. The bank thermometer in Hill City at the end of the day read 100 degrees. The good news is that the constant and strong wind makes it feel cooler. I guess the wind chill factor helps sometimes.

The main focus of today was a trip to the Reptile Gardens. I think their big draws had once been the komodo dragons, alligators and gallapagos turtles, but they've since expanded to local birds of prey and other locals. We spent a lot of time at the prarie dog penitentiary because of the nice shade trees.

The alligator show was very well done in a funny-yet-dangerous sort of way. It was run by a young man in jeans and a T-shirt wearing a wireless headset. He told the typical bad Disneyland Jungle Safari puns at first but then his jokes moved on to his boss and started to get quite good. All the while, we were learning about crocodiles, caymans, aligators and gariols.

The highlight of the show was the gator wrestling. He started by declaring that the louder we cheer, the stupider his tricks would get. This really got the young kids going. The croc that the audience chose was so big he couldn't get it on shore. This was where the older parts of the audience started to realize that this was serious business. He talked us through how to approach gators, where to put your hands and knees and then proceeded to demonstrate on his victim who seemed to want nothing more than to lay in the sun in peace. We learned that someone with a relatively strong grip could easily keep the jaws shut. They had about 35lbs of opening force, compared to 2000 of closing force.

It was great to have the kids see Mount Rushmore. It's one of those things that everyone should do, though there's really not much to it. Drive up, park at the massive parking structure, walk through the avenue of state flags, then take your pictures. The exposition hall and brochures did an excellent job answering all my questions. How did they do it? How long did it take? Who funded it? Apparently they've been asked everything over the years.

For dinner, we ate at the Route 16 Diner, an authentic place complete with pictures of Elvis and Marilyn and classic cars. Another diner success! This would be a pretty good way to travel arond America if you didn't die of a heart attack. Given the current state of health in the nation, maybe that's what people do.

Highlights
1. There was an ice cream shoppe on Main Street t at was closed last night and this was a crime. I dropped in today and grabbed a root beer float. The float itself was bland, but it the proprietress told me to come back if I needed more root beer and that really sold it for me. The number one issue among male root beer float drinkers ages 35-50 is the icecream/root beer balance.


Quirks:
1. Heard on the radio: You can't buy liquor in a grocery store in Montana but we did manage to find a drive up window at a bar.