Wall Drug

July 17, 2015

After settling in last evening we walk down to Main street in search of something to eat. Food choices in the mid west are getting pretty limited, especially if you're not particularly fond of biscuits and gravy or chicken fried steak. It seems funny in a town with what appears to be thousands of hotel rooms there are so few restaurants. Our choices are Subway, Popeye's, the Wall Drug Cafe and a couple of pizza/burger joints. We opt for one of the latter. There isn't even one salad on the menu, so I ask our waitress and she replies that they can make a salad, "but don't ask for anything fancy" she says. The salad is ok, although it is covered with cheese and tons of black olives. The draft beer selection is the usual fare, Busch Light being the big seller apparently. Luckily I do find a can of local IPA.
After we eat we head across the street to Wall Drug. Wall Drug is "a sprawling tourist attraction of international renown [that] takes in more than $10 million a year and draws some two million annual visitors to a remote town. Apparently Wall Drug got it's start offering free ice water to travelers heading to Mt Rushmore back in the 30.s. Then they began their famous advertising campaign with signs saying how far it was to Wall Drug. Now it seems to be just a mall with lots of memorabilia on the walls and glassy eyed kids working the registers.  We head back to our room, tomorrow we start our journey across the mid west. The road ahead looks straight and flat with severe weather predicted in the afternoon. We need to start early, for a change.