Reptile Gardens, Tacos & Sanitariums

We had a few hours before Lindsay’s flight left the Rapid City airport so we took our time driving there.  As we left Mount Rushmore, the surrounding town was like Daytona Beach set in the old west.  There were gift shops and saloons, ice creams shops and hotel after hotel with signs meant to one-up the competition, “Breakfast AND pool” or “Free tickets to the Reptile Garden.”  Yes, the Reptile Garden.  Many local entrepreneurs had decided to solve the age-old problem facing family vacationers. What else is there to do after you’ve driven 100 hours to South Dakota and seen Mount Rushmore? There were giant mazes, go-karts, mystery areas (your guess is as good as mine, that’s why it’s a mystery) and a place called “Ranch Amusement Park.”  Is it a ranch or an amusement park?  Just another example of how the West likes their double-labels (Ranch Park, Monument Canyon). 

Then we saw it.  In between a house and a Sonoco station were three giant Presidential busts.  Kennedy, Reagan and George W.  “What is that?” Lindsay asked.  I had no answer for her, “Do you want to see it?” I replied.  “Of course I do,” she said, sickened with the obviousness of the question.  I made a dramatic turn across the highway and pulled up next to the giant white heads.  The sign next to them was a Life magazine cover claiming they were, “1 of 21 Americas Amazing MUST SEE.”  While I pondered what the wording meant, I wondered if the cover was real and read the bottom headlines, “How to Cook Breakfast for 5,000″ and “Find the Right Bike.”  It was obviously a quality issue.   Still, there was no real explanation as to what these things were or why 3 of them had found themselves stranded next to a gas station.  As I walked closer to them, my foot hit the grass and specs jumped all around it as if there were streamers being shot up from the ground.  I screamed as I realized it was a swarm of grasshoppers and they were getting uncomfortably close to flying up my dress.  With every step, I was displacing dozens of giant bugs.  I have nothing against grasshoppers but this was truly a situation of being outnumbered and outsmarted.  I didn’t want to step on them or have them get stuck in my long skirt but I also had a strong suspicion that they might take over at any minute and throw mini-ropes up to trip me and tie down the giant who was destroying their town.  “Are you seeing this?” I kept screaming at Lindsay.  She seemed unphased. 

I tried to capture the terror on video but I just come off like a nut… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f-_tbOjNTk

After we’d had our fill of the gas station attraction, we continued to the booming metropolis that houses the Rapid City airport.  I dropped Lindsay off at a small building where she would wait with the 5 other people who were on her flight.  Despite having already had a full morning I wanted to drive at least six more hours before stopping, so I quickly readjusted my mindset and the inside of my car to solo-passenger status.  I put everything within reach, from my water and trail mix to the electronics store that once again lived in the passenger seat.  I glanced in my rearview mirror to see Lindsay walk inside and then I looked to my right.  Phone, camera, voice recorder, mp3 player, sunglasses.  I put the car in drive and continued on.

The racing in my mind and the silence that existed beyond the radio returned quickly, and with it came a change in landscape.  The mountains and dark, changing trees were now fields of yellow that stretched straight to the blue of the sky.  I receded into my thoughts and wondered where I would be sleeping that night.  I had second cousins in Iowa but they were far enough that I wouldn’t arrive until well after midnight.  I decided to stop at a hotel instead and began dividing miles and hours and envisioned where the distance would land me.  My thoughts were interrupted by a billboard, “You scream. I scream. We all scream for Pork Loin.”  It was official, I had entered the familiar Midwest. 

About an hour after I wanted to eat, a Food sign popped up for the next exit with two fast-food locations on it.  I dismissed Pizza Hut as an option and pulled up to the Taco John’s.  I went inside and placed my order, a chicken burrito with their equivalent of tater tots.  “Will you be dining with us this evening?”  The question caught me completely off-guard.  Can one dine at a Taco John’s?  After some stammering, I said no and she handed me my ticket number.  I went to the restroom, still thinking how strange the question was.  It was a single room with bright, white walls that looked like plastic.  In a frame too small for the amount of space the wall offered was a picture of a building with black print above it, ”Sanitarium and Hospital.  Chamberlain, South Dakota.”  I stared at it for at least a minute.  Why was there a picture of a sanitarium in a Taco John’s bathroom??  Not to mention, that I wasn’t even IN Chamberlain, South Dakota.  That night I searched “Sanitarium Chamberlain South Dakota,” hoping to find a connection.  The first site that came up read, “Deaths at Chamberlain Sanitarium.”  Although I’m confident in the eccentricities of other Taco John’s locations, I feel comfortable saying that this one is the strangest.