Our drive through South Dakota can be summed up with one word: HOT. Ben's Honda's air conditioning has not been operating at full capacity for several months. "A clog in the line", he says. "It kind of works", he says. The thing is, in Milwaukee it does not really get that hot enough, often enough, to warrant it receiving priority attention. He chose to deal with the heat and humidity over the cost to fix the AC.
Little did we know, South Dakota transforms into a "boiling lava hot" desert of despair in the summer months. And when you are driving through that, AC that "kind of works" (but does not actually work) just does not cut it. At the peak of the day, we were suffering from heat exhaustion and searching desperately for an exit with cold drinks and AC available.
We were about to enter Buffalo Gap National Grassland (which feeds directly into the Badlands National Park and involves miles of no gas, food, water or civilization of any kind) when, at the last exit, we were saved by a little miracle diner call Jiggers.
Literally in the middle of nowhere (surely the inspiration for Courage the Cowardly Dog), Jiggers was a diner like any other found in extremely small communities - the waitresses knew all locals who came in to eat, new folks stood out and were asked to share their stories, hand-made but unremarkable food, and very personal service. We were mostly interested in their salty fries, tasty milkshakes, and sitting for as long as we could in their AC. To us, it was heaven sent sustenance plunked down in the middle of Hell.
South Dakota was not all bad. We made our traditional stop at the Corn Palace to explore, take pictures, and buy an obscene number of popcorn balls (2 regular, 2 cookies & cream, 1 caramel, and 1 white chocolate raspberry). During our pit-stop at the Corn Palace, we also found ourselves in the midst of what looked like a State Fair. Turns out, it was the Corn Palace Festival, a really big deal for Mitchell, SD. Food carts and shops filled the streets, a carousel resided in the middle of a "highly-trafficked" (by Mitchell standards) intersection. They even had a midway! It's a big deal! Who knew?!
No comments:
Post a Comment