SOUTH DAKOTA
Oh, the adventures we had here.
When we were moving between Oklahoma and Washington, in two cars, with cats, I was nearly sideswiped by a truck, and was run off the road in Nebraska. Jane, her vision blocked by a number of trucks, had no idea what had happened, and the expensive cell phones that were supposed to keep us in contact didn't allow roaming---which with that phone service is just about everywhere not in a city.
To make a long story short, we lost each other. Jane ended up taking a room early, in Valentine NE, hoping I would show up, and I ended up taking a room late at night in Wall, SD, the one stop we had talked about making. Now Wall Drug is the most incredible place if you like shopping, touristy places, and a whole town devoted to the world's largest drug store, with history that goes back to the earliest cross-country traffic, when they got the notion of providing free ice water to travelers, and started a tradition.
Wall also sits across from the Badlands, which is quite a barren and unique area of South Dakota. When we finally found each other, we took the Badlands loop, about an hour's drive, and unfortunately gave one of our cats, who was quite distressed, catnip, as a calmative before the detour.
It didn't. He was from lusher territory, and apparently viewed the badlands as one long terrifying hallucination. Neither cat was pleased with what they saw outside, and they seemed to believe it indicated a dangerous dearth of chicken in the vicinity.
It's quite photogenic, but I was having camera troubles during that trip---probably my hands were still shaking, over the past 24 hours. But it is worth seeing. There are dino excavations in the area, too---as you can bet, when you see some of those sedimentary layers exposed.