This is the first post in a series of three chronicling my mother and I’s annual trip. This year we headed through Wyoming to South Dakota and the Black Hills.

For a grownup like me, a visit to Wall Drug seemed necessary on our trek to the Black Hills – it was a part of my childhood.  Not that it was on the way to where we were going (Rapid City), because it wasn’t.  We had to pass the black hills and head east nearly to the Badlands before we got there. It was grey, cool, breezy, and just not the best kind of weather for a vacation, but it didn’t matter.  It was vacation!  And I was with my mom! We started seeing the signs for Wall Drug before we even got to South Dakota.

(In case you can’t read the caption, it says “Relax, Captain.  They pop up every 3 light years or so.”)

Mom and I both have strong memories of Wall Drug. I was probably fourteen or so when we visited it on one of our family vacations.  The signs warn you all along the way – through Nebraska, through  South Dakota, that it is coming.  Every couple of miles, it’s “Home of the Jackalope!” and “Free Ice Water!” and “Five Cent Coffee!”  And yes, it has all of those things, and so much more.  Basically, it’s a giant tourist trap full of all the kitsch you would imagine, but in the happy, hey-this-might-be-a-bargain kind of way sometimes.  It also has a real pharmacy, and carries real drug store items, along with the souvenir mugs, t-shirts, cowboy boots, and “Native American” textiles.  There are creepy animatronic displays (a band of cowboys playing banjo on a front porch), giant taxidermied animals, carved “wooden Indians,” and plenty of giant plastic animals out in the courtyard for the kids to climb on and have their picture taken with.

And it was nothing like my memories of it.  Actually, the only memory I had of it at all was the sign, which still looks the same, and the taxidermied “Jackalope.”  The Jackalope was nowhere to be found when we got there this year.  In the 70’s, when I would have first visited Wall Drug, the Jackalope was the draw.  It was on all the signs.  It was touted as the biggest and best reason for visiting Wall Drug.  I suppose after all these years, the stuffed Jackalope fell apart.  The only Jackalope I saw was the big plastic one in the courtyard (picture below).  My memory places the Jackalope on a long, wooden bar with brass footrails.  There was still a long, wooden bar with brass footrails, but it was actually the lunch counter, and full of plastic cases of cookies, donuts, and other ready-made food items, along with the afore-mentioned “five cent coffee.”

What is a Jackalope?  Well, as the name might imply, it was a cross between a jackrabbit and an antelope, both of which are prolific on the plains of Wyoming and South Dakota.  The Jackalope was a large jackrabbit fitted with the horns of a small antelope, as if the two had been bred together.  Yes, totally campy and cheesy.  But in the middle of South Dakota, you kind of need a marvel or two to get people to stop.

We ordered bison burgers at the lunch counter, and sat in the dining room to eat. Some of the look of that room was familiar, but I hadn’t remembered all the artwork.  Dozens of paintings hung around the walls, and we spent some time wandering around and looking at them all.  In fact, there was artwork all over the place, not just in the dining room.  There were also photos of local and national celebrities in hallways, and in the main inside walkway, plenty of totem poles, enormous taxidermied buffalo heads, and painted wooden saloon girl carvings that you could have your picture taken with.  There were a series of shops, all interconnected, hawking everything from $500 cowboy boots to $2 bumper stickers.  You could buy candles, Native American art, leather goods, clothing, camping gear, soaps and perfumes, knitted items, woodworking, tennis shoes, and all the postcards you could ever hope to send.

And there were bargains!  I bought my first-ever leather purse for under $10.  I also got fancy socks with wolves on them for Tater for $6, and an iconic Wall Drug t-shirt for Klown for $20.  I bought bumper stickers, a Wall Drug wall sign (is that redundant?), and pretty handmade copper earrings for my Perfect Child for $15.  Bargains!  I still spent over $50.  haha.  (A note about that leather purse.  It is the first leather purse I’ve ever owned.  My mom thought it was hilarious that I kept sniffing it after I bought it.  Every time I walk into the room where I left it, I can smell it.  I like that smell.)

Then we wandered around looking at everything else.  I found the actual pharmacy among the shops.  The giant plastic skeleton hanging in the window was funny, but it’s a real apothecary, complete with a pharmacist on duty.  Wall Drug’s initial purpose was to provide a drug store for that area of the country.  When the owners realized no one had money to spend in that area of the country, they then became a “travel stop” for people heading west during the Great Depression.  My mother traveled the area when she was a child, and she remembers Wall Drug’s “free ice water.”  She said it was a place to look forward to after traveling for hours, or days, on a trip.  I’m sure her memories are different than mine.  I know when I had talked to a coworker (who just moved to Boulder from Spearfish, South Dakota) about going to Wall Drug, he thought I was crazy for driving an extra 50 miles just to go there.  He grew up there, he thought it was hokey.  And it is hokey.  But it’s also part of my memories, so it was important for me to visit it again.  How could I be so close to it, and not visit it again?  In fact, if we’d had an extra day, we’d have probably gone a little further and seen the Badlands, as well, something I also have strong memories of.

One of the best parts of this trip was being able to share memories again with my mom.  When you’re fourteen, you don’t understand how precious those memories can be later.  You’re young, life is still ahead of you, and this is just a blip in a long list of memories you will keep with you throughout life.  Now I’m older, and so is mom, so these trips become as much about making new memories as it is about honoring the old ones.  And even if some of those memories are kitschy, they are important.  I am so glad we got to take this trip.

What kitschy places have you visited that gave you good memories?  Leave your answers in the comments!

Free ice water!  Of course, the fountain was turned off because it was the off-season, so we had to pretend!

$500 boots.  Yikes!

Fox tails?  Coyote tails too!

Mom and I.  She’s holding back those plastic horses like a pro!  And me?  Holding down a bench, of course! Notice our Wall Drug shopping bag off to the right – all of our fancee souvenirs were in there!  Including my under $10 leather purse!

You can ask my mom – I have a thing about buffaloes.  I still have my stuffed buffalo I bought somewhere out west (probably Yellowstone) when I was 14.  This one is the real deal, although it’s not live anymore.

The plastic box made it hard to photograph, but it was a fine specimen of a young grizzly.

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