"I wish you could be here with me to feel the peace and calmness of heart that I do now. See you soon. XO"
I sidled the corolla up to the blue drop box and it slid into the spout. I noticed that there was no clunk when it fell, and peered into the box. It was filled to the brim with letters and postcards, a pretty impressive feat for a tiny town. I wondered if the post office it was next to had gone defunct. I didn't see anybody inside, nor parked out front, come to think of it. No way to get the card back now. Oh well. I guess I was truly meant to experience the Grotto alone, which seemed to be par for the course with most poignant moments in my travels.
I hightailed it out of the oasis that was West Bend back into the desolate Iowa highway. I was pleased to see that the sunny weather held up for the rest of the morning as I tore through the endless sea of wheat. I headed northwest, eventually making it to Minnesota. I rolled through the downtown of a tiny, out of the way town and stopped to stretch my legs. There was a coffee shop just across the street. This town was just another isolated small community, but I think I felt compelled to stop because it reminded me of my hometown. I walked into the shop and inhaled the fresh scent of roasted beans. An antique cash register sat on the counter and next to it, a glass pie stand with a luscious homemade apple pie in it, slices priced at $2.50. The register reminded me for the world of the ancient teller machine at Blount's drug store downtown back home, where my sister slung sodas and shakes in high school. I always went there for hand-mixed vanilla Cokes--with extra vanilla, of course, in my youth. In a moment of financial preservation, I opted not to get the pie. To this day, I regret that decision. As I passed through the southwest corner of Minnesota, I took in the landscape in deep gulps, the sun in my face and puffy, crisp clouds framing the scene.
Not too shabby.
Along my way, I saw curiosities that fascinated me. I passed an abandoned, rusted out train that sat decomposing quietly along the side of the highway. The rusty decay was crawling its way from top to bottom of the cars, the faded blue paint at the berth giving way to a green-yellow middle, gracefully blending into a ruddy orange on the roof. I wondered how many passengers rode on it over the years, headed to some new adventure on the rails. I wondered how it must have been when smartly dressed porters manned it as passengers gazed out the windows, back when it was shiny and new, and how it must have looked when it roared through the open plains and mountains. I wondered how long it was used before being unceremoniously dumped along the side of a desolate rural road.
Further down the road, I saw a drive in movie theater completely in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by crops as far as the eye could see. I've never been to one, and seeing as they're becoming a bit of a rarity, I was of course enamored by it. I've always wanted to sit under the stars and watch a film, nipping bourbon from a smuggled flask on a blanket in the evening air.
When I hit South Dakota, it was time to get back on the interstate. I hopped on to fast track through some of the miles to keep me on schedule. It's a necessary sacrifice when one travels like I do. I enjoy the small towns, the funky attractions, and the unusual destinations. However, two weeks of driving on secondary roads and scenic byways won't allow you to get as far. So I ride the middle, picking out interesting attractions and fast tracking some parts of the trip to allow me to linger in others.
I approached Sioux Falls and felt the need to refuel both myself and the car. I exited the highway and found an enormous Flying J complex. I parked the car and walked in. There was a Denny's connected to it. Normally, I like eating at places I can't find back home, but at this particular moment, if you had tried to get in between me and a ham cheddar melt, I'd have cut you five ways-- and then proceeded to eat that melt over your corpse.
I sat down in a booth by the window, quickly served by a heavyset brunette waitress with a thick, endearing midwestern accent. As a southerner, not only do I not notice my accent (which I have been told is surprisingly subtle), but I rarely encounter great dialects outside of our native tongue. I find most accents to be interesting and charming, especially those found away from the east coast. I looked across the dining room and saw a large group of people eating a hearty meal.
My lunch arrived and I inhaled half of the giant melt. I looked across the diner and saw a picture on the wall of a buffalo and laughed to myself, remembering the discussion I had with my friends back home about seeing a buffalo in the wild. I'd become mildly obsessed with seeing them, especially after hearing tales from a friend who had lived there very briefly and regaled me with tales of them causing traffic jams. For some reason, they seemed to be delightful and beautiful creatures. I hadn't seen one yet, and was rather disheartened about it. Today would be my day.
Amused at my own silliness, I got the other half of my sandwich to go and pulled my car up to the gas pump. As I refueled, I looked at the pickup truck in front of me at the pump ahead. In the bed was an assortment of what looked to be Native American ceremonial items: drums, feather wands, and even a large ceremonial headdress. I thought about the items as I fueled, wondering if these were for private events or for some sort of entertainment value. I always feel a pang of guilt when people's culture is turned into a sideshow, which was rampant in the rest stops and attractions I'd passed so far.
Dismissing the thought, I hopped in the car. While waiting for the GPS to boot up, three men exited the gas station, walking towards the pump I was at. I recognized them from the large table in Denny's. As I watched in the rearview, they they split up as they approached our vehicles. Two of them walked slowly on either side, the third on the right leaning sideways against the Corolla, pausing to stare in my window at my belongings, and then at me. One on the left hovered by my driver side door. The scrape of his jeans on paint crashed against my ears as he slid slowly on the side of the car.
Are these assholes seriously pulling this mess in broad daylight, in a busy gas station? I thought. Still, concern and anxiety began to tingle in my gut. South Dakota was a very, very long way from home.
I pretended to be calm and looked up to the rearview mirror. The third man was standing directly behind my car, now preventing me from being able to move it. He rocked his weight forward, bumping the corolla with his hips. Enter panic mode. I had three intense, unpleasant looking guys flanking my car and a pickup blocking my front. I reached my left hand to my hip, slowly and deliberately pulling my knife out of my pocket. He bumped my car again, this time leaving all his weight pressed against the bumper and trunk, the corolla budging forward on its shocks gently. He locked eyes with me, and a slow grin crept across his face.
I didn't drive all this way to get the wits scared out of me in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in broad daylight, did I? Fuck this, I thought. They'll move, or I'll fucking move them.
I locked eyes with the one making love to my bumper and angrily shoved the gear shift in reverse, the car shuddering in a simultaneously subtle and aggressive click. He remained unmoved. All right, let's play chicken then, I thought. I eased delicately off the clutch. The car began to roll, pushing him with it. Needless to say, their fun was over as they threw in the towel and he moved, but I was thoroughly shaken. Their eyes followed me all the way from the pump to the road. I nervously lit a cigarette, trying to quiet my jitters. Well, Sioux Falls can go right to hell, I thought.
The day was nowhere over though. There were miles to cross still. So I kept driving. Sketchy dudes be damned.
By this point I was making good time on the interstate. I was headed for another "offbeat attraction" called Porter Sculpture Park. It was listed as being in Montrose, South Dakota. It was described as being a large field full of big sculptures that had been hand welded and constructed by a single man in his free time. The photos I saw online looked colorful and whimsical.
I was getting close to the general vicinity and wondered how I would find this place, considering it didn't have an actual address on the website I saw. Then I saw it, rising slowly on the horizon: a hulking, massive bull head bigger than a house. Yep, this must be the place. I exited the interstate and hooked a left. There was a long dirt road to get to the park. The sign said "Welcome to Porter Sculpture Park. Things to bring: 1. Leash (for pets or significant others) 2. Camera (not responsible for bad photos)." I crawled the car up the grass road and around the bend to where a small RV and an open shipping container sat. I parked the car and got out to to stretch. There was stiff, refreshing breeze on that hilltop with white, billowing clouds unfolding higher and higher into the brilliant blue canopy above me. To my distant left rolled the cars on the interstate, their droning engines inaudible between the distance and the wind that swirled around me. The tall, unmowed grass bowed to its force gracefully. To my right, rolling expansive plains of what appeared to be wheat, cresting and falling in tides just as the ocean does on a bright, balmy summer day at Kill Devil Hills.
I stood for a moment at this great ocean and inhaled deeply, savoring the late summer heat. It was then that I took note of the shipping container before me-- or more importantly, I saw who was taking note of me. A man sat inside, shielded from the overbearing sun, quietly waiting for my peaceful moment to come to a close. I walked to where he sat and bid him hello.
His face was a mix of leather brown and flushed pink, the cracks and lines on his face etched deeply into his forehead and the corners of his eyes. His hair was short, but shaggy, a straw-colored yellow that only comes from long hours spent baking in the hot sun. He appeared older than he was, prematurely aged by harsh elements and, from the look of it, a possible long term relationship with the bottle. He sat patiently, if not slightly awkward in his gaze.
He greeted me and explained that he was the creator of this place. He loved sculpting by means of welding, and would put together his works one at a time with painstaking labor, then assemble them at the sculpture park for long term installment.
He was undoubtedly a strange fellow. His demeanor, tone of voice, and posture gave me the impression that social interaction might not be his forte, but he was kind and honest in his representation of his artistic vision. His words sort of hung in the air, attempts at humor that fell short, resulting in forced laughter and a slight unease.
I paid the modest admission fee to the park and was given the keys to a golf cart. Reserved for the disabled or elderly, he explained, but since it was a slow day I could use one as VIP since the park was empty.
Now let me clarify it's called a sculpture park, but not in the conventional means that we think of parks go be. It was more a scattered, yet carefully placed assortment of massive metal structures laid surrealy onto a grassy hill-- no sidewalks or fences, just a beaten grass path linking between each piece like a larger than life connect the dots.
I began my golf cart ride peacefully enough, rolling up to some large goldfish that fit perfectly against the backdrop of the grassy ocean behind them. Shortly after, an eighteen foot tall sculpture lay out the abstract frame of a goldfish bowl, contrast perfectly against the rich hues of an almost cerulean sky behind it, the fight within seeming completely at home in their blue enclosure.
Human for scale.
As I went on, the statues became a bit less idyllic and more interpretive. I encountered a statue of a man painted completely black with one hand on his head, as if in shock. His eyes were white circles with his jaw dropped completely to his belly. White, disturbing teeth outlined as a macabre, gaping maw.
I know that feel, bro.
Further ahead, in a tangle of old bicycle parts, helmets, and haphazard metal scraps, lay the metal skeleton of a dragon, with a sword piercing the ribcage, buried deep in his heart. The grass was deliberately unmowed at this statue, crawling between the metal ribs, protruding gently out of the orbital sockets as an unwanted visitor that represented the lapse of great time, illustrating a forgotten victory of an epic battle.
I rounded a corner to see two large red robed figures with the ghostly absence of faces looking penitently down at the ground, the space where their features would be completely shrouded in black. These statues were becoming a bit disturbing.
I was getting closer to the giant, overbearing metal bull head. As I approached, I came to skeletal figures, half man half goat, standing watch in corners around the bust. Each stood in a different stance, once with a staff held out dominant, the other with his hands falling limp-- metal bike spokes and gears serving as weapons, a battering axe in hand, human body with a metal goat skull for a face. They were intimidating. They reminded me of so of Jason and the Argonauts, an old-time film I saw in my tender years, as skeletons rose from the ground bearing swords in a chilling and horrific battle. Well, at least, to me, at my impressionable and innocent age of youth, they seemed absolutely terrifying.
The Guardian
There he sat, at the edge of the park, the other statues out of view from the angle at which I sat in my golf cart fortress. This massive, overwhelming bust of a slowly rusting giant bull. There stood a plaque before it commenting on its origin, noting that it was a testament to the gods worshipped of old. It noted also, "bats are known to inhabit the inside of the sculpture. Please don't disturb the bats." It beckoned visitors to enter the back of the skull to look inside. As previously mentioned, the head was the size of one of the faces on Mount Rushmore. As a landmark I hadn't yet seen, this was a foreign size comparison to me. As it stood, the sculpture was impossibly huge, made completely out of railroad plates - the large, flat pieces that railroad ties are clamped to at the base where the rails meet the wooden planks. How could that little man, brown and pink and blonde and leathery, make such an amazingly huge monument?
I hopped out of the golf cart and approached, the grass whipping at my exposed feet. The wind was pulling me forward. I stepped to the back of the mammoth sculpture and looked at the rusty opening. The entrance seemed to be as tall as two of me. I stepped in, the breeze whirling into a vortex of sounds and gusts around me as I moved into the head of the giant ungulate. The rising dome around me engulfed my presence as I stood beneath the hulking creation, amazed at the fact that this was all painstakingly built by hand. The sculpture towered around me-- at a distance, resembling a heap of rust, but on closer inspection, it was a carefully constructed masterpiece and a hand made labor of love.
I looked to the right of me above. There, nestled to the wall on the inside of the bull, were various clusters of iron bats, clearly molten parts poured into a mold and made into the shapes of cave-dwelling creatures. There were a handful of these clusters surrounding me inside the cavernous beast.
It was mildly unsettling as I looked at them, remembering the warning of bats in the sculpture. Were they butterflies that the sign warned of, it would be whimsical. At the same time, I remembered the awkward sense of humor the creator had, and felt like it was par for the course that he would make a joke that didn't quite hit home. He probably thought that warning about "bats" was hilarious, but to the casual bystander that didn't quite get pop art, we may think it was a bit odd. Nevertheless, I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
At this point it should be mentioned that I missed something ominous in this sculpture's belly. Amongst the beams suspended for support, pressed back and hanging from between what would be the inside of the eyes of the bull, a figure of a man lay hanged in a crucified style. His rusty iron body was spread as if on The Rack, tiny horns of The Beast subtly budding from his head. His face flared back at me as I gawked, a jigsaw smile on his face that resembled a jack-o-lantern.
I stared, enraptured by this crucified demon. Again with the demons. He seemed to stare back at me, his eerie grin piercing through my core and finding nothingness behind it, an unsatisfied observer. The wind inside the beast curled around my face in a vortex that chilled me to my bones. I had barely escaped one demon facing off to me this morning; I wasn't prepared to deal with another so soon. The silence was deafening around me. This iron shroud was more of a tomb than anything else.
The light from the bare sun pierced harshly through the holes of the railroad ties, giving a filtered view of the interior of the bull. The dust and dirt and grass mad a brilliant show midair, captured brilliantly by each beam of light that peered through the statue. It resembled, at times, smoke whirling about in an empty room.
Me? I lay stuck in a staring contest with the hanging demon. He seemed to mock me from his rusty throne.
The beauty of not being currently suspended from an iron edifice is that, when confronted with a demon (who seems to see through you and be judging you for every bad decision) is that you have the freedom to walk away. I did just that.
Axe wound to skull added for accent, I imagine.
As I left the iron bull, I was blasted in the face with a harsh breeze. Never that matter; the sun shone on my face with radiance and warmth once more. It was all I could hope for in that moment.
I perused the remaining sculptures with a slight unease, but quickly felt refreshed. It had been a wildly productive day as far as mileage and events, rich in symbolism and introspect. The golf cart steered back to its parking spot at the metal building and I thanked the gentleman for his time, as well as for creating such a lovely place. He offered a handful of candies that were sitting by the cash box and with that, the 'Rolla headed back on the road.
I stayed on the interstate briefly, but my next waypoint was Pierre, South Dakota. Once you leave the southeast corner of the U.S., the road systems do a magical thing: they start to make sense. There's this incredible thing called a grid, and the streets and highways follow this design almost to a fault in Middle America. Even if you have never been there before, you can kind of figure out where you're going based on a simple understanding of "x blocks up and y blocks over." The highways are similar. The only drawback to that is that one often has to zig-zag across a state to get somewhere specific, as was the case with Pierre. It sat a few hours north of the main interstate, so I had to drive so many miles due west and then take a perpendicular highway north.
It was no bother. I turned onto the highway and set my course for north, admiring the open and spacious layout of this road. Four lanes with a graciously wide median between the southbound lanes set the stage, with a golden-green blanket of grass to fill the space in between. This was the opportunity to make up for lost time, flying through the landscape at 75 mph. The terrain was slightly hilly, with the road cutting through the path of least resistance, rolling hills swelling up gracefully on either side. There was little of note on the sides of the road other than sun-toasted grass, but about an hour into my drive there were some animals off in the distance that looked like deer. When the car got closer, I realized they were horses, untamed by any fences, buildings, or rails along the road for miles. I smiled at these wild ponies as they grazed, passing peacefully from a safe distance.
Hope you fueled up.
My approach to Pierre, South Dakota, came as the sun dragged low in the sky. Upon looking into campsites, I found the Farm Island recreational grounds on my phone. There was but one must-visit place in this city, but first, lodging had to be acquired. As I pulled off to the access road where the camp was, I paused to look at the sunset. The car was perched atop a perfectly straight railroad track, and where the two lines converged on the horizon, the sun rested just barely off center.
Once the fees for the site were paid, I scanned the campsites and picked a spot that backed directly up to the small lake at the center of the grounds. This one had 100% less geese than the last, which was a relief. With housing arranged, I headed to town. Firstly, the name of the town is spelled Pierre, but is pronounced the way one would say "pier," as in "I went to the fishing pier." I didn't want to sound like a blatant tourist, so this information was helpful. It was a town highly recommended to me by a friend that lived there briefly. Countless hours were spent drinking cold beers and dancing at the Long Branch, Pierre's watering hole.
The town was quiet and still as the sun peeked over the horizon. I pulled up to the bar and stepped inside, the dark carpeting and wooden walls greeting me sleepily. The whole place was practically empty, but judging by the number of tables and chairs as well as the length of the long, square bar, it was safe to assume that it was probably pretty hopping on a weekend night. I took a seat at the bar and ordered a PBR, perusing the menu. I ordered a sandwich and browsed about the room, surveying the men playing slots in the back corner of the bar.
After a quiet dinner, I headed back to Farm Island and settled into my campsite, inflating magic car bed and settling in with my things. The weather was much less oppressive than other stops so far, and I had the next few sites vacant next to me, which was a nice change in the privacy department. I kicked off the shoes and toed into the quiet, calm water of the lake and thought about the day as the last light lingered in the sky. There was a light breeze, bringing in unfamiliar, earthy scents to my nose. How strange to be so far from anyone I knew. A quiet peace filled my ears in the absence of noise. I felt alone, but I was anything but lonely as I inhaled the sunset.
Today had been one for contemplation and introspect. I kept thinking back to the Grotto, to the Sculpture Park, the open fields, and all the other beautiful, brilliant sights of the day and wondered what the universe was trying to tell me. Perhaps nothing. Perhaps these were messages I was gleaning from my own subconscious. Life certainly had been tumultuous as of late, and trying to sort out ones thoughts and emotions or find direction while dealing with the day to day routine is about as effective as trying to catch a breeze on a sailboat with a screen door. Sometimes you have to step outside both your safety net and your zip code to see things clearly. Upon looking at my life from the safety and distance of South Dakota, I realized I had a lot of demons to conquer, but it was a challenge that, at least at this moment, I felt that I was finally up for.
This image brought to you by South Dakota and the Anti-Goose Poop Coalition.
P.S. Still no buffalo sightings.
P.S.S. The damned check engine light was still on.
