On Monuments

Anyone who has ever driven within 300 miles of Wall, SD on I-90 has seen a sign for Wall Drug. Free Ice Water. America’s Favorite Roadside Attraction. Animated Life Sized T-Rex. This-Sign-Is-A-Not-So-Subliminal-Message-Ordering-You-To-Stop-At-Wall-Drug-If-You-Call-Yourself-An-American. It’s nuts. And it honestly wasn’t even on our route at the beginning of the day. But somewhere between Matt setting my camera up on a tripod in the middle of the highway beside the entrance sign to the Badlands, and our wonderfully panoramic hikes within, mystical forces conspired to land us, starving and thirsty, in the shadeless town of Wall right at lunchtime. 

Interestingly, every tourist at Wall Drug looked like they had suffered a similar fate. Every face—especially those of the women in line for the two-stall bathroom—read, “The signs told me to come, but I’m honestly not sure what I’m doing here, surrounded by South Dakota key chains and generic native art, trying to enjoy a buffalo burger before taking numerous photos of my child next to the large dinosaur and the six-foot-tall bunny out back. I guess I just wanted some free ice water.” (According to Wall Drug lore, the initial success of the place was due to a “free ice water” sign put up late in the Depression era, when tourists were beginning to accumulate on their way to see Yellowstone or the recently completed Mount Rushmore.)

Looking around at the mayhem, which our toddler certainly contributed to, I dubbed Wall Drug a “Monument to Ridiculousness.” Which is nice, I guess. Ridiculousness is one of the pillars of American civilization (reality TV, anyone?) and thus just as deserving of an adequate monument as anything or anyone else (veterans, presidents, natural beauty, long-suffering Native Americans, et cetera). Kelly almost modified my classification to “Monument to White Ridiculousness.” But just as we walked out the door, a lone, formally dressed black man came in. Somehow his attire made the whole scene even more ridiculous. But we did get a nice walking stick.

Our second monument of the day, Mt. Rushmore, was the site of a Greenpeace protest just hours after we left. The most exciting things that occurred during our visit:

1) We met another Coast Guard officer who was moving from Seattle to Virginia. This confirmed my growing suspicion that the U.S. Military’s policy of moving its employees every few years is actually an elaborate scheme established in conjunction with the U.S. Tourism Industry to ensure that the inherently patriotic must hit the road every summer.

2) One of the original drillers of the sculpture was in the gift shop signing books.

3) Matt squished George Washington’s head.