Badlands

What a day, what a day.

First was the wake-up call in the Missle Capital of the USA. Yep, the post-breakfast viewing of a Titan I missle, complete with pigeons roosting on top, made me wonder: could that Cold War weapon really fly to Moscow in, oh, 30 minutes? Then we traversed the hypnotic emptiness of the Nebraska panhandle, stopping to view bison and to visit the site of the Wounded Knee massacre. Forging northward, we entered Badlands National Park, and instead of having a Bruce Springsteen moment, I heard the roar of hundreds, if not thousands, of Harley riders converging on Sturgis. Potato, potato, potato, potato.

Taken together, the day's travel made for a disjointed slice of Americana: ICBMS, massacre of Plains Indians, bison, a landscape more moon-like than earth-like, and the triumph of affiliation in marketing.