BS"D


BADLANDS FOR SALE?

Monday, August 2nd (BC Day - why do I always end up spending my Canadian holidays in the US?)

Woke with the sun & stumbled into the rest room to wash & get ready to daven. As I was in the bathroom, the hostile rest stop caretaker yelled through the stall door at me that the door is required to remain open. Yikes. Well, welcome to Wyoming...
Washed, Davened in a covered picnic area with truckers staring, trying to dump the ugly energy that had just been spewed on me in the bathroom.

Hit the road & made South Dakota.
Stopped at the Flying J in Wall (who could resist after hundreds of miles of funny, odd old-fashioned signs?) made lunch on the car & phone calls home.
Dropped into NAPA for a power inverter, to keep my laptop & music going while on the road, & a turn-signal bulb. The air conditioning didn't hurt either.
There is a Giant green brontosaurus there.

I really wanted to explore the Badlands, but between the tight schedule I needed to keep & the fact that you have to *pay admission*, I skipped & zoomed off to Iowa.

By 6:30 I was in Sioux Falls, IA - so strange to be here after 3 years. All the rest stops in Iowa & Nebraska have wireless internet - what an unexpected blessing! I stopped to meditate on the fireflies' light & the chicada's sound. It was unbelieveably humid. I'm really worried about the Torah qlaf I have stored in the car. It's in a hard tube & wrapped in plastic, but still...

Made it to yet another Flying J, in Davenport (a dear place with it's own real Egyptian mummy), to call - get gas - make a pitstop...looking for MR Internet Cafe, but there's none to be found. I'm exhausted, so purchase a cervical pillow & settle into the front of the car, musing about the sights I took in today, including passing the home of Laura Ingalls, & a nasty looking Biker with a waving Elmo doll & US flag on the back of his Harley.

I fell asleep with my head peeking out of the open widow, waking occasionaly during the all-night thunder & lightning storm to say the brakhahs on such wonders of G@d.