But it was therapeutic, if for no one else but me. I actually hugged Ramon in the end and told him I'd be glad to take direction from him if only he would communicate what the hell he wanted. And it seemed to have worked for him, too. For not an hour down the road we hit the rest stop that would be our home that night, legalities to the wind. And while there, Ramon would direct a rather bizarre but fascinating little segment involving fireworks and art cars, two things I never would have connected until then. It was a blast and a success in a very gonzo sort of way. Pyrotechnics and illegal camping on the interstate. You don't get much more felonious without pulling out a gun.

The weird energy that I mentioned earlier was every bit the result of that hot and argumentative afternoon and its shaky resolution. When we hit the rest stop at dusk, whoops and hollers filled the air. We were inexplicably ecstatic. Chiquita's day-glo wigs were out and adorning heads. Firecrackers and bottle rockets snapped and popped in the wind. Chiquita came running back from a run through the sprinklers all wet and wild-eyed. Hot and sweaty as I was, I put up no resistance as she dragged me through them as well. I even ran back to Duke to fetch my shampoo. Chloe set up kitchen in a little rest stop alcove and cooked buffalo burgers and teriyaki chicken. Beer came from every car and Stockton's roof-top speakers filled the windy plains with rock and roll. The night was alive and electric.

The next day we'd split from the Yellow Bus to drop down on the 240 through the Badlands. Outside a store, the main attraction of which was a prairie dog town, we parked and pissed a bitch about the cost of getting into the Badlands at $10/car. We piled into three vehicles, leaving the Natmobile, Max and the trailered Ripper behind, and sailed through half the park, with Stockton kindly picking up the tab for everyone. To my mind, the best part of our brief jaunt through the park was Duke's open observation tower from which Bobina, Chiquita, Tex, Ned and I all got to view the landscape. Tex and Ned had removed the bubble skylight making for a primo wind-in-your-face ride. Otherwise, I found the Badlands rather boring and spent most of the ride discussing voluntary extinction with Ned.

All the way across South Dakota, tourists, truckers and everyone else behind the wheel are insidiously and repeatedly reminded of the existence of Wall Drug. No matter that you're not in the market for pharmaceuticals or that you have no idea what the hell Wall Drug is, founder Ted Hustead has masterminded a command of your attention. Perhaps because there's simply nothing else to see way out here where the GPS reads "NOTHING," Wall Drug thousands of billboards bring in the customers.

Tex had voiced the rather sensible notion that we boycott Wall Drug altogether due to their ruthless commercial brainwashing and "blow by Wall at top speed." I was hip to that idea when first he said it. But after the Badlands had emptied both my brain and my stomach, I and everyone else was hungry and off the interstate we went in search of Wall Drug.

What we found was a zoo-like mass of tourists swarming the narrow avenue of an old west-like town. I saw dollar signs. A few others in the caravan, who don't have postcards to sell, saw high prices and pain-in-the-ass crowds. And thanks to that, we almost bailed. Until suddenly a situation evolved.

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Last update April 1, 2004