Herrick, South Dakota, town mater familias. Mom’s home town, population 105. Look, its the main street. Look mom’s old school, no longer in use. Cool.

Blew into Herrick around 11:00, stayed for lunch. 2 hours of visit. I’m sure I’ll be hearing about it for the rest of my life. Crystal’s worse than her mother.

Aunt Ruth had acquired a ton of "give away" food-ham, pot pie, cake, Lake butter, ice cream, etc. - so that was most of what we had for lunch. Plus squash grown in Grandma's yard and some local watermelon. I was stuffed by the end.

After lunch, we took some pictures, then went back to the pool hall (aka general store, café, and place to play poker). There we met up with Uncle Charlie, who told us the best route back to Hwy 90. 

We have cool badlands. They were fantastic-amazing ripples of sand, stone, gravel, in colorful layers of gray, pink, yellow, and red. We took a few pictures. 

We drove out of the park and straight into Wall about 4:30 p.m. It sits on the plain and bleeds into the Badlands. 

And of course, after 1000 ad signs, we had to go to Wall Drug where we dived into the deepest pool of kitsch I've ever  seen - western clothes, toys, t-shirts, ash trays, magnets, key chains and junk of every description. 

After eating, we went into their backyard full of bizarre plastic statues, like jackalope and gorilla and coin operated dioramas. We got gas and took pictures of the 80 ft dinosaur on our way out.

Then we drove and drove. 

South Dakota. Flat. Vast. It felt good to just drive and drive on long straight roads.