Day 1- Minneapolis to Deadwood, South Dakota
Not that interesting of a drive actually. South Dakota is pretty flat until you get to the Southwest Corner. As Sturgis--the bike rally--was starting the day we rolled into Deadwood, we passed a lot of bikers en route. The main highlights were the drive through The Badlands.
After the Badlands, we went to Wall, SD, which had been advertised vigorously across the State, as if were the greatest attraction of all time. If you're into cliches and the ridiculous trinkets that you can pick up at truck stops all across America, then the Wall Drug Store is your place. The store was staffed by young foreigners (mainly from Eastern Europe and Russia it seemed). Poor Bastards probably waited in lengthy lines and waded through tons of bureaucratic red tape to go to America and end up in the ass crack of South Dakota dealing with America's finest--the obnoxious tourist. Needless to say, we grabbed a burger and left this place pretty quick.
The next stop on the way to Deadwood was Mt. Rushmore. I thought it would be one of those sites where it was quite less impressive in person, but I was pleasantly surprised. Pretty Cool!
The funniest thing about Mt. Rushmore were the signs on the way there for a rather dubious attraction entitled Cosmo's Mystery Area. The signs encouraged visitors to "See it, Feel it" because "It's Crazy!" I know one thing:No one is allowed to feel my mystery area without permission.
Deadwood was ridiculously packed with bikers. It's a pretty cool little tourist town though. We ate a crappy meal at this bar among old dirty bikers and their unfortunately scantily clad wives and girlfriends. The bar served Budweiser cans and had sawdust on the floor. We spent the rest of the evening playing blackjack at a casino where John actually came out on top and I lost a few bucks.
Day Two: Deadwood, SD to St. Mary's, Montana (Glacier National Park)
I can't remember much of this leg of the trip now. I remember it was quite pretty leaving Deadwood and then sort of flattened out into Montana farm land. We camped for the night just inside Glacier National Park at St. Mary's Campground (below). It is hard to see how amazing the view was from these pictures, but I have never camped in such a beautiful campground.
Days Three and Four: Glacier National Park [Backcountry]
We spent the next two nights camping in the backcountry at Poia Lake and hiking to/from that point.
Day Five: Glacier National Park to Calgary, Alberta
We exited the park, after seeing some amazing stuff, but no bears or moose unfortunately. On our way down the mountain we ran into a group of four hardcore grandmas packed up and ready to hit the backcountry. They told us they saw a grizzly at the trail head, but by the time we got down there, we didn't see anything.
On our way out of Montana, we stopped at a little general store to re-pack the car. Incidentally, we have to do this all the time, anytime we camp or even go into a hostel, everything gets all jacked up and the car is full to the brim anyway. Most of my life is in the car. I'm also constantly losing stuff amongst all the junk and the packing and re-packing. Anyway, in front of this store, is a true cowboy sitting on a bench. He's wearing sunglasses on his ruddy face. In fact, it looks like his whole head has been smudged out with sandpaper. Hard living. John empties out the cooler and distributes some miscellaneous Rolling Rocks that are almost warm to the cowboy. He sets them next to his boots, because he is already nursing one. After we tell him, we are headed to Anchorage, he volunteers that he made it to Anchorage in 32 hours once. "Anchorage", he says, "There's a lot of whores in Anchorage." I believe he even told us to get us some of them whores, as we got into the car to leave.
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