Butte-iful.

Billings, MT - Despite a setback involving an illicit liaison between cars in Rapid City, SD this morning, the day continued to unfold as it otherwise should. Nobody was hurt and there was only minor damage.

We paid another visit to Wall Drug (a "76,000-square-foot wonderland of free attractions") and basked in the high kitsch factor, while resisting the urge to purchase something jackalope-related. Compared to the summer months, the town is relatively dead and many hotels and businesses in Wall have been shuttered as residents brace themselves for the cold of winter. It's entirely possible I saw a tumbleweed pirouette through town.

We then visited Mount Rushmore and peered up at large stone carvings of former Presidents. They won the staring contest every time.

Throughout Wyoming, yellow grasses swayed in the breeze like golden tresses set against flaxen camel humps. Matchstick electric poles stood delicately against the enormity of the backdrop: simultaneously enormous and miniaturized, as though part of a model.

As we continued in Montana, the scenery became tediously similar, yet subtly different - much in the way parents distinguish between their children. Passing through Lame Deer, MT, however, we laughed at its school, which is called: "Chief Dull Knife College." While I'm sure Chief Dull Knife was very likely an important man, there are too many jokes to be made about not being the sharpest knife in the drawer. Which have no doubt been made numerous times already.

Throughout Montana, however, we saw absolutely nothing. Nothing. It was dark before 5 p.m.

Vitals:

• Time: 12 hours
• Distance: 728.2 kilometres
• Weather: Sun, Moderate
• States: South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana
• Wildlife: Antelope, Deer, Grouse, Pheasant

Badlands, Badass.

Wall, SD - With the sun setting in a water colour of mauves and oranges, we wove through Badlands National Park this evening. It was like driving over the molars of giants. Or on the moon.

Though not my first time there, I had forgotten just how breathtaking its vistas are. Jagged rock, precipitous drops, a blue sky, hundreds of deer, bison and big horned sheep: what's not to love? This was truly one of my favourite road trip experiences of all.

In between, we visited the Corn Palace in Mitchell, which contains a basketball court (and hosted a Joan Jett concert recently, apparently) and is covered in folk art made from - you guessed it - corn. The design changes annually and was introduced as a response to Lewis & Clark's claim that nobody could make a living from the land here. It was first built in 1892.

South Dakota has been fun to drive through: flat, brown earth suddenly gives way to badlands and eccentric 'Wall Drug' signs pepper the landscape, lending it some colour.

Miles of sunflower crops stand, dried like disenfranchised youth out of a Tim Burton movie: once so full of colour, but now dark like running mascara, with heads bowed.

Vitals:

• Time: 12 hours
• Distance: 957 kilometres
  
• Weather: Sun, Moderate
• Provinces/States: Minnesota, South Dakota
• Wildlife: Pheasants, (hundreds of) Deer, Bison, Big-horned Sheep, Prairie Dog