South Dakota (bottom left corner)

Badlands National Park The badlands park makes a scenic loop to the south of I-90, through all sorts of lovely canyons and water-sculpted terrain. I got my National Parks Pass ($50 for all the national park admissions you can use in a year, which is quite cost-effective when you are planning on going places like Yellowstone, which have $20 admission fees) at the visitor's center, where the ranger recommended that I take an alternate route past where the bison herds where likely to be visible from the road.

There were in fact bison on the horizon, and prarie dogs much nearer to view, although the dirt road was distressingly washboarded. The standing bison are mostly males, while the ones lying down are mainly mothers of new calves, which are paler and blend into the grass nicely. I was utterly fascinated by the tumbleweeds. I don't remember actually seeing any before this, though of course one hears about them...

This is the infamous Wall Drug, for which one sees signs for hundreds of miles along I-90. It's about all there is to see, really, before you get to the hills. (I was actually quite confused by them, wondering what a wall drug was-- as it turns out, it is the "scenic" drug store of the town of Wall.) Mainly it is a giant tourist attraction, complete with five kinds of junkshop, a block's worth of window displays, and a central hall with jukebox player instruments. Unfortunately, I was foolish enough to buy a fateful vanilla milkshake, which was the last straw for my digestive system, already unhappy about the succession of restaurant foods. So instead of further exciting stops in the Black Hills (and there are lots of good places to see, although don't bother with Mt. Rushmore, as it looks just like the pictures, and that's about all there is to it) I had exciting adventures being sick on the roadside, while serenaded by prarie birds. They were nice birds, but still...

The legendary Jakalope. After looking at displays like this, it seems to me that the real reason you never see one is that they are being hunted to extinction by the souvenier industry.

In this location Carmen Sandiego would probably steal: Mt Rushmore (not visited) In fact, I think she did steal in in the "Where in the USA" game.