While driving along highway 90 during the very very flat and boring portion of South Dakota there really isn’t much to look at. But other than the flat land that was treeless it had another feature decorating it… the very cleaver advertising form the billboard. The sign for the famous Wall Drug (as seen on the Today Show, in Newsweek, Time,…) began 300 miles away. This American institution is proof if you put up signs and advertise free ice water tourists will come. This little drug store has since tripled in size and is visited by millions each year. Signs were placed announcing the distance from the store all over the world, GIs from WWII helped out with that, but due Lady Byrd most of the signs in this country were taken down. I really can’t believe there used to be even more signs than the ones that remain today. When you get to Wall Drug you can still get your free ice water, a 5 cent cup of coffee, and see the old “Jackalope”, but all it really is a tourist trap with a history.
Another intriguing sign was the sign for the Corn Palace. If you see a sign for the world’s only palace made of corn you pull over for the hell of it. So I pulled over to Mitchell, SD to see the famous World’s only Corn Palace, but it wasn’t completely made out of corn. But the designs and murals were made with multicolored corn cobs. The funniest thing though was the fact that it shared the building with city hall.
It is truly only in America the only place you can see the world’s largest prairie dog, skeleton man walking a skeleton T Rex, and the Corn Palace. I am disappointed however I missed the world’s largest pheasant, but I saw enough crazy ones running across the road. The joke should go “why did the pheasant cross the road…” not chicken.
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