Day 6: Rainy Day Women #35 and #49

Day 6:  Medora to Rapid City

QOTD:  No man is above the law, and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man’s permission when we ask him to obey it

Pics: RR Hotel, Deadwood, Teddy’s Deli in Keystone, Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse, bison in Custer, Wind Caves NP, Fuji Restaurant

Weather:  High 70s, better visibility in the afternoon along with rain

Breakfast of French toast at RR Hotel, coffee, $25. Leave around 7:30, heading due south.

Quite a day: long pretty drive in the morning from Medora to Deadwood. Mostly in South Dakota, THB’s 49^th state (bonus points for id’ing the unvisited #50). Deadwood has clearly figured out how to muscle up on Al, Seth and Sol’s notoriety and the place is now overrun with casinos that aren’t really made to look like the Gem. From there we have lunch in Keystone at Teddy’s Deli, just a few miles from Mt Rushmore (tuna sandwich, pastrami sandwich, 2 lemonades, $22). Mt Rushmore appears to be loaded with people willing to pay $11 to park and gawk. THB gets that same gawking done just outside the parking area.

Maybe from shame, THB and DB pay their way in to see the unfinished Crazy Horse memorial just down the road from Mt Rushmore. Here you pay by the head, so it is $22 to get in and watch a video that just makes you realize a) they are never gonna finish this one, b) they are collecting a lot of money in the meantime (including another $4 per person to take a bus up close where you lose perspective­­), and c) there are no Indians in sight, so who is actually collecting and using this money?

Further along the road south is Wind Caves National Park, number 35 for THB. Just a short wait to take the next tour, about 1.25 hours underground. Okay tour as caves go, and easy as we move mostly downhill in the cave.

Check in at the Cambria Suites in Rapid City around 6:20, it’s been a long day. Dinner at Fuji of gyoza, sushi rolls, udon with tempura, two glasses of wine and a Sierra Nevada, $60 (let’s just say it isn’t quite up to Bay Area standards, though the sumo wrestlers in the lobby are something special).

Book Review:  Odds Against Tomorrow, Nathaniel Rich (novel): Another in a growing list of catastrophe novels, playing on the fears we all hold since 9/11, Katrina, Sandy, and miscellaneous tornadoes. Told from perspective on young fearful savant that predicts the next big natural disaster. Fast, easy to read, recommended if you think it is gonna happen here soon (as opposed to: it can’t happen here anytime). This book picks up right after the end of another book (an earthquake destroys Seattle) that THB read in the last few years and cannot remember the name of the book. Is that another disaster?

Book Review:  I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen, by Sylvie Simmons, audio, 18 hours. Brings a bit of background to a guy who is pretty much what he seems on stage: a sense of humor, a bit humble, always on the move, fascinated by women, philosophical, generous, distant, religious, a monk, a father, highly celebrated in his old age, not interested in money, and trying to pare life down to some sort of essence. Definitely recommended to fans, doubt non-fans will be able to sustain the effort on something of this scale.

Tech Review: You plug your i-pod or i-phone directly into the car console via a standard ubs port and cable and THB-will-be-damned the radio starts playing right off the devise immediately. All this in a rented piece-oh-crap Kia (see pic from day 1).  And, if you’re not careful, you can move to next song by touching the controls on the steering wheel (THB only restarted the book at page one once, and DB made a full recovery in seconds). Now, for most of you, this is nothing new. Since THB is driving 2000 and 2004 models at home, he’s lucky the radio has both FM and AM, let alone a CD player.