Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
like a life-size dinosaur, a 1908 Hupmobile, a stuffed buffalo, and a big pole with arrows
giving the distances and directions from Wall Drug to places all over the world, like Paris
and Hong Kong and Timbuktu. Above all, he erected hundreds of billboards all along the
highway between Sioux Falls and the Black Hills, and filled the store with the most exotic
and comprehensive assortment of tourist crap human eyes have ever seen, and pretty soon
people were pouring in. Now Wall Drug takes up most of the town and is surrounded by
parking lots so enormous that you could land a jumbo jet on them. In the summer they get
up to 20,000 visitors a day, though when I arrived things were decidedly more quiet and I
was able to park right out front on Main Street.
I was hugely disappointed to discover that Wall Drug wasn't just an overgrown drugstore
as I had always imagined. It was more a mini shopping mall, with about forty little stores
selling all kinds of different things-postcards, film, western wear, jewelry, cowboy boots,
food, paintings, and endless souvenirs. I bought a very nice kerosene lamp in the shape
of Mount Rushmore. The wick and glass jar that encloses it sprout directly out of George
Washington's head. It was made in Japan and the four presidents have a distinctly oriental
slant to their eyes. There were many other gifts and keepsakes of this type, though none
quite as beautiful or charming. Sadly, there were no baseball caps with plastic turds on the
brim. Wall Drug is a family store, so that sort of thing is right out. It was a pity because
this was the last souvenir place I was likely to encounter on the trip. Another dream would
have to go unfulfilled.
