do they ever call anything the goodlands?

last night we drove into rapid city, SD around midnight (mountain time - we're definitely coming back west). it was totally dark except for a tiny bit of moonlight, so as a result i totally missed all of the badlands. the most interesting thing that happened on the road was that i almost ran over a fox, but did not. otherwise it was totally eventless. at one point i was literally the only car on the road in sight.

despite the lack of any real happenings in SD, i have to say that it's not as bad as i thought. it's really gorgeous - the eastern part is all cornfields and farms and haybales, and the western part (as far as i could tell in the dark) is exactly the same except with no farms or cornfields. slightly boring but really pretty in its own way - the sky looks huge.

of course, i'm biased towards SD - when we drove by a sign explaining the exit for de smet, home of laura ingalls wilder (the "little town on the prairie") i pretty much flipped my shit. unfortunately it was way out of the way otherwise there is a very good chance i would have dragged dan there. i am seriously enjoying the traveling out west because it's so reminiscent in a weird way of all the books i read when i was a kid. i kind of want to start in wisconsin and drive to de smet, replicating the ingalls wagon trail. not kidding.

yesterday morning of course we had quite a scare - we woke up at the frat house (wow i really never wanted to say that sentence in my life) and intended to leave around 9:15. as dan and i walked outside, i said, "i sure hope the car isn't towed." (we had sort of parked it blocking a mini-underground parking lot belonging to the sigma chi house.) dan said, "would you be surprised?" i thought about it, and said, "yes." then we got outside and there was no car.

three hours later after i panicked a LOT and after a lot of calls to the police and various towing companies, during which we filed a stolen car report and everything, we found the car. it had been towed about an hour after we'd parked it at 3 am (random) and it had been legally parked on a street about a mile and a half away. i was never so happy to see that car in my life - and the best part is that the horns are still on it. lessons learned: park legally, madison police department does not have lojack capabilities, and when you park anywhere, take your computer OUT of the car in case it disappears forever with your entire life. that was a little scary for a while.

anyway, today we head for mount rushmore, little bighorn, and yellowstone. this morning as we ate our breakfast in the hotel, we got approximately the weirdest cross section of humanity i could possibly imagine. the women next to us were talking about red and blue states in the most hushed voices i had ever heard, and weren't saying anything interesting. it all seemed to be some kind of conspiracy to them. this of course turned pretty much insane when they started talking about splenda. yes, the sweetener. one woman started talking about how she had done her own tests and been her own guinea pig and how as soon as she drank any splenda she has memory problems. it was obviously not scientific and the other two women just ate it up. oh, south dakota.