#028: We Do Cows Dot Com

Back on the road then. Hmm...I might stop saying such things, being as I am on a roadtrip and, unless this is your first visit, you've probably already grasped the notion that I'm driving round the States.
This section of the journey will see me crossing the Great Plains towards the Great Lakes and, eventually, reaching the second city of America: Chicago. I forgot to include the ipod A->Z in my last blog. Well, four days driving round Yellowstone accounted for the artists from Bent to Boa. Here's what happened next...

Gardiner MT to Buffalo WY
ipod: Boa to Brig
I passed an advert for a waterpark for sale - and I passed the waterpark itself actually - if anyone fancies a waterpark. It is well placed - you know what they say, location location location - at the side of the I-90 interstate in The Absolute Middle Of Nowhere. The nearest towns are miles away, and probably only hold a few hundred people, if that. Your client base must, I guess, be comprised entirely of passing motorists.
My route takes me past Little Bighorn, the site most commonly referred to as the scene of 'Custers Last Stand'. Two sides to every story, of course. The Native side, in this case, is called 'The Battle of Greasy Grass'. I sidled past in the van, and procured some gasoline from a distant descendant of an original North American settler.
Crossing the state border into Wyoming it looks like the landscape is pretty much entirely volcanic aftermath. Vast, undulating yet well-adapted lava fields with strong, uniform grass-growth stretch off to the horizon ahead of me. And this is basically the landscape I see throughout the whole of Wyoming, aside from the mountains off to the west.
I spent the night in Buffalo, at an RV park. The majority of such places are shutting down for the winter so, where I can find an open one, they are largely quiet and peaceful, though often in winter mode, which means lacking in amenities. I am therefore getting more proficient at 'holding it in', though am by no means an expert. Yep, you're getting the nuts and bolts and no mistake.

Buffalo WY to Badlands SD
ipod: Brig to Butc
First night back sleeping in the van for a few days and I think it is fair to say it was cold. According to the website I'm using to keep track of the weather, it got as low as 7 degrees in F's last night which, when you consider 32 F's (see the name of this here blog) is the freezing point of water, 7 of them is pretty darn Arctic. As a result, all my liquid supplies solidified overnight - water, juice, teabags. I also had to treat my devices for hypothermia, warming them slowly, bringing their core temperature back up using my hat, gloves and, eventually, introducing them to the snug warmth of my sleeping bag/duvet combo (shared body heat - classic move). I doubt I'll be alone in my bed for the next few nights unless there is a sudden heatwave.
Within minutes of starting out on the freeway again, I was treated to the sight of a bald eagle - the one off the seal of the President of the United States - perched on a fence post at the side of the road. Today's route crosses all manner of creeks, I assume named by Native Americans rather a long time ago: Dead Horse creek, Crazy Horse creek, Crazy Woman creek (not even lying, any crazy female doubters out there).
The roads are all open and clear of obstruction, either by the weather or other drivers. I'm so happy with my decision to come to America straight from Canada. It couldn't have worked out better. I'm getting to see everything - things I want to see aren't shut down for the winter - and I'm actually able to get to places. The road I am travelling on (the I-90) has warning signs every fifty miles or so saying to leave the road if the lights on the signs are flashing. So far none have been. I guess they only flash if the road is covered in snow, which I am sure it would have been if I hadn't gotten to the States until January.
Towards the end of the drive into South Dakota, I take a small detour to Mount Rushmore to have a look at it - it is kind of iconic, to say the least. Cary Grant did some climbing on it in North by Northwest. Michael 'Marionette' Moore did some terrorism in it in Team America: World Police. I did some looking at it; I don't think I was filmed. There was even a sign on the drive towards the site saying "North by Northwest was filmed in this region." I must have missed the one that said the same about Team America.

Badlands SD to Sioux Falls SD
ipod: Butc to Car
Another freezing night, this time spent in a deserted RV park right next door to the Minuteman nuclear missile test facility in the South Dakota desert. I wasn't visited by Rorschach, thankfully. The choice of site was entirely due to its' proximity to Badlands National Park, a collection of weather-worn canyons, cliffs and boulders in the plains outside of Rapid City. Pretty spectacular stuff; slightly odd to experience on a crisp Autumnal morning, with a wintery chill in the air, in a stunning desert landscape. Signs warn tourists to carry plenty of water because of the sweltering temperatures. I didn't have such worries, although I did pay attention to the warnings of rattlesnakes (no encounters). I took a morning stroll through some of the canyons - one particularly precarious path allowed me to climb onto the formations, a rarity in American parks - before getting back behind the wheel and heading east again.
I pass an authentic 1880's town, repleat with picturesque church house on a hillock. The cross-wind angling down from the north is viscious today, catching me by surprise on one notable occasion as it whistled through any small gaps in the make-up of the van. It maybe shifted the van as much as a foot to the right on the roadway. I am also struck by the large number of disturbing crime scenes littering the freeway as I pass through South Dakota. Either the suicide rate amongst the local deer population is unusually high, or roadkill happens much more here than other states I have visited. The sheer volumes only compound what are truly harrowing sights.
One other thing is apparent on this leg of my odyssey. Billboards again. There are thousands of the things, some advertising establishments that are 150 miles away. That's like driving west out of London and seeing a billboard for a B&B in Cardiff...clearly sense of scale in these huge countries is still something I am getting used to. My favourite billboard has earnt itself a place in the title of this post. So many possibilities for what it involves, but I daren't look at the website for fear of disappointment. We Do Cows Dot Com is nicely juxtaposed with another billboard, this one for Olivia's Adult Supercentre. Then, not two miles further on, there is a billboard for Annabelle's Adult Supercentre. Perhaps Olivia and Annabelle are related - the adidas/Puma of the Adult Supercentre world. Maybe they even have a stake in We Do Cows Dot Com too...
Forty miles out from my destination I see a billboard advertising it: Yogi Bear's Jellystone Park RV Campground. The true purpose of my year-long sabbatical finally within sight.

Jellystone Park SD to Perrot State Park WI
ipod: Car to Chemic
There's not really a lot to say about today, other than I started out with Yogi and Boo-Boo, drove across the entire state of Minnesota, somehow continued to dodge the snow (some has fallen ahead of me, in Wisconsin, the last couple of days...I guess I'll find out what is left of it soon enough), and spent the night deep in the forest of Perrot State Park, near the upper reaches of the majestic Mississippi, alone, in the dark. The setting can't be more like a location out of a teen slasher movie if it tried. The water supply is even contaminated with nitrates. I pull the duvet tight over my head and hope to wake up in the morning...
...it's 6AM. There's a noise, a scratching at the outside of the van. Really not funny, Mr. Bird, or Mrs. Deer, or whoever you are.

Perrot State Park WI to Madison WI
ipod: Chemic to Chemis
A short way out of La Crosse - the biggest town near to Perrot - the fields flanking the freeway start to show signs of the recent snowfall. The roads, however, are totally clear. It seems the authorities round these parts know what they're doing when the flakes begin to fall, in stark contrast to recent times in the UK.
I drive past another waterpark, except this one isn't for sale. Then another next door! And a third! Three massive waterparks right next door to each other. It's a waterparkpark! Perhaps I have underestimated the power of the waterpark in this region. What better way to escape the freezing blanket of water outside than to splash about inside. Wait, there's a billboard...a waterslide that does a loop-the-loop! Oh my.
Relatively, today is a short drive, between two and three hours, so I detour via Dr. Evermore's scrap sculptures which, through their size, have earnt him a mention in the Guinness Book of Records. I pass through the town of Lodi on the way, home of Susi the Duck (I've no idea). Unfortunately Dr. Evermore's scrap sculptures aren't where the book says they are, so I continue on into Madison and a couple of nights recovery in the quaint townhouse hostel there, the Great Plains tamed.
Finally, for those of you that it interests, the ipod A->Z involved a rather narrow section of the alphabet today. That would be the fault of The Chemical Brothers. There have been a few artists within the A's and the B's who have three albums to their name on my ipod, but The Chemical Brothers are the first to take up virtually a whole day on their own. It has been quite some time since I listened to them and, let me tell you, it made quite a party in the Purple Nimbus as we headed down the highway. Even Emily joined in, trying to make herself heard above the racket: "In 800 yards, turn right on West Neddy. I'm 'bout ready to rock steady." It was like the second half of the nineties all over again.
I had forgotten quite how awesome those early albums were - albums in the truest sense, not just collections of hits. Is it really sixteen years since I listened to Exit Planet Dust for the first time, that summer in Aviemore? Sixteen years! Half my life ago! And Dig Your Own Hole, well, that album is heavy. I had it in my head that, as the years have gone by, forms of music have gotten into the mainstream that do the dirty bass thing heavier - dubstep and the equivalent end of drum n bass - but, man, Dig Your Own Hole is downright filthy! 'Elektrobank/Piku', 'It Doesn't Matter', the back end of 'Where Do I Begin'!
Yep, we've had a good day today. And I just have to sign off this installment by name-checking one more old Chemical Brothers tune...Life Is Sweet.