From Cleveland to Portland: Day 3

States Visited: South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana

Distance Traveled: 699 miles

Time: 14 hours, including a 2 hour stop around Mt. Rushmore National Monument

"And now I'm in Wyoming. In the distance; snow-capped peaks to my left, Devil's Tower to my right. Incredible."

-brian j conti, mobile uploads on facebook | May 7, 2011 at 1:18pm

My third day on the road got an incredibly early start. I had a lot planned between morning and nightfall, and if I was going to make it into Montana, I needed to be on the road by sunrise. With blinding light creeping over the horizon behind me, I crossed the bridge over the Missouri River and entered the great rolling plains of South Dakota. As boring as yesterday's drive became, this new scenery was invigorating, upwelling a feeling that may have been similar to what the participants of the Oregon Trail felt upon emerging into such a landscape.

There's a magic that the film Dances With Wolves embodies. I've considered it, in certain circles, to have climbed the ranks into a genuine American classic, the rolling hills and gentle plains artistically captured as a character of the movie, just as much as Lt. John Dunbar himself. And here, amidst the beauty of western South Dakota, I felt immersed in the film in a way I never could have experienced before, with John Barry's sweeping themes playing over and over in my had as my own personal soundtrack.

Mid-morning, on the advice of my ex-girlfriend's family, I turned south off of I-90 and entered South Dakota's Badlands National Park. It was a short drive, but well-worth the detour. Upon entering the park, these pillow-like plains suddenly morphed into a landscape not unlike the surface of The Moon. It was an effect of erosion, whether it be wind or water, unlike any I had ever seen before. Without the luxury of the roads, I could imagine that it would be nearly impossible to navigate, with outcroppings and crags leading to shear drops and crevices that seemed to disappear into oblivion.

Once on the park floor, however, the two-lane highway curved through the alien-like cliffs and tunnels for a good ten miles before climbing back up onto the rim once again. Here, Kino and I encountered the Yellow Mounds of the Badlands, a geological effect that I had once seen many years ago in my youth, during a family visit to Arizona's Painted Desert. The hues were vivid and striking, its natural beauty being convincing enough for me to pull over and take a few moments to bask in its color. A trail led off the parking area and wound its way down amidst the cliffs, which Kino and I followed for a ways, enjoying the fresh air and moments of solitude outside of the confines of the car. Once in a level, somewhat grassy area, I let Kino off the leash to allow him to open up in a run, which he took advantage of without hesitation. Watching him weave to and fro amidst the fields with the sweeping matte of South Dakota's hills behind him, I knew immediately that this is where he belonged. He looked natural and at ease, as if he had been waiting his entire life for this moment.

Moments later, we were back on I-90 and transitioning into western South Dakota's Black Hills, a rocky, geological anomaly often described as "an island of trees in a sea of grass." Blanketed with forests of Black Hills Spruce and Ponderosa Pine, the Black Hills are the home of one of our nation's most famous National Monuments; Mount Rushmore, not to mention a wide array of controversial history concerning our dealings with the Native American population, most notably the Sioux tribe that dominated the area before the Gold Rush of 1874.

Winding our way up the mountain, I pulled through the entrance gates and into the parking lot, where I was forced to leave Kino waiting in the car as no pets were allowed on the monument's grounds. Following the promenade which was lined with columns displaying each state's dedicated flag and plaque outlining its history, I arrived at the viewing deck, the awe of Mount Rushmore's four presidential likenesses dominating the mountain in front of me. I've heard people say that once you get there, Rushmore is much smaller than you would be led to believe and they're not wrong. But, in setting my expectations a bit low, I arrived there not overwhelmed, but highly impressed. There are paths around and beneath the sculpture that offer multiple perspectives of its engineering, something of which people don't normally mention. It was on this path, as opposed to the direct view of the sculpture, that my impressions grew. To accomplish such a feat (which I learned was never finished, as it was originally designed to fully portray each of the four presidents from the waist-up) in such accurate detail and massive scale is an absolute wonder. It was a worthy pitstop on all accounts.

During our descent out of the Black Hills, Kino and I stopped for a few moments to take in a quick hike down through the forested, granite borders of the monument. About a hundred yards on the trail, I stopped to take in the view which looked out over the southern edges of the range when I suddenly heard a commotion behind me. Before I could even turn around, I was yanked clear off my feet by Kino's leash handle, which was attached around the shoulder strap of my backpack. For a split, stomach-turning second, I thought my loss of balance was going to send me over the cliff upon which I was standing. And it almost did had it not been for deep handholds that peppered the volcanic granite beneath me. Scrambling away from the edge, I looked up to see Kino in a standoff with a bonafide mountain goat, which appeared none too happy to have him in his territory. The goat charged and Kino, who may be in his senior years but still has the reflexes of a gazelle, half leaped/half darted out of the way and dropped deep into a playbow. I couldn't believe it. This thing wanted to kill him, and to Kino it was all a game. Granted, he had never seen a mountain goat before and may have not fully comprehended the threat, but even still...intuition should tell him to avoid death at all costs. During its second charge, which Kino again successfully dodged, the goat momentarily got tangled up in the expandable leash cord that still attached Kino to my shoulder, and stumbled across the rocks. Not waiting for him to recover, I jumped up, grabbed Kino by the harness and sprinted with him up the trail and back to the car. The goat didn't follow.

The rest of the day along I-90 turned out be fairly uneventful, but incredibly scenic. Not for a moment during that drive, from 2:00 in the afternoon until nightfall, was I uninterested in the landscape around me. Dropping out of the Black Hills, I crossed over into Wyoming, which offered the drive's first view of snow-capped mountains along the horizon. For a quick second I was also able to see Devil's Tower in the distance, but decided against another stop, as the day was passing quickly and the window that would allow me to reach central Montana was quickly closing.

Just east of Bighorn National Forest, I-90 jams north towards Montana, merging with SR87, then SR212 once over the Montana border. As I passed into the Big Sky State, it was easy to see how the borders were drawn so many years before, as the natural landscape evolved into sheer majesty before my eyes. My goal was to make it to Bozeman by day's end, but unfortunately, for the first time on my drive, I was hit with the unfortunate obstacle of poor weather. Suddenly pounded by a mixture of rain and snow, I was forced to stop for the night at a glorified truck stop by the name of Big Timber. Whether Big Timber was the name of the county or just the porn store/strip club/trucker store beside the exit, I couldn't tell, nor did I care. Once again, I settled down in a grungy little hotel room just off the interstate and following a long hot shower, eased into a deep sleep with Kino at my side. Once again planning for an early start, I had plans for tomorrow that would take me into Yellowstone National Park. However, things don't always go according to plan.