Then through the Doane Robinson Tunnel. A great windy highway through another tunnel after another Pigtail Bridge, this tunnel actually being two short tunnels with a slight gap in between them.     At 12:05, I stopped at the Norbeck Overlook and I’m glad I did because I found I should have turned left when I turned right after Mount Rushmore (I also had another view of Mount Rushmore from the Norbeck Overlook) so I turned around and headed back.
    So it was back to 244 and taking US 16A east into Keystone pop 377 at 12:23, Good Time Photo, Rattlesnake Shakes, Trading Post, the National Presidential Rock Museum. Through Miners Gateway Tunnel, which is basically a rock bridge over the road, Bear Country USA, Powder House Lodge. Off 16A to US 16 at 11:28, temp 68. At this point, past Rockerville (or something like that), it had become a divided highway with a pretty good-sized median, still mostly blue sky with a lot of clouds, past Sitting Bull Crystal Caverns, the median now a concrete strip.
    Rapid City at 12:41, temp 71, pop 47,677. The Rushmore Casino. The Howard Johnson’s in Rapid City at 1:12, temp 73, odometer 126849. Nice-sized room, 2 beds but a small bathroom, sink outside the bathroom with a fair-sized counter, refrigerator, desk, a second-floor room but the back entrance is level with the parking lot.
    Then I took a short walk downtown, the corners with statues of presidents, perhaps every one. I saw those of James Bunchanan, JFK, Taft, Martin Van Buren. The motel had free popcorn and drinks (soft drinks or beer) in the evening.

Tuesday, March 22
In 1960, I was cast as Tranio in NYU’s The Taming of the Shrew.
Rapid City to the Nebraska state line     Up at 8, a gray day. Quite a spread at the motel--coffee, apple juice, Rice Chex, bagel and cream cheese, yogurt, biscuits & gravy, a blueberry muffin with strawberry glop on it. There were also waffles, donuts, toast, and maybe some other stuff.
    On the road at 9:42, temp 47, odometer 126849, totally gray day, no cloud outlines visible. On to I-90 east at 9:46 into slightly rolling grassland, small houses.
    Wall Drug Country at 9:58. 10:10, Free Ice Water at Wall Drug, slightly rolling empty prairie country, a farm house, naked trees standing alone, meandering creek bed, some green among the brownish yellow of the land. The Shooting Gallery at Wall Drug, Wall Drug Mining Company, Wasta at 10:21, some trailer homes, speed limit 80, real nice little canyon off to my left, the prairie falling off sharply to the Cheyenne River. Railroad off to my right heads off into these rolling yellow hills dotted with pines, very pleasant country. The westbound lanes of I-90 are on the other side of hills, a bit of a pond in the median, which dips deep down into a gully where a creek sometimes flows lined by leafless trees then back up some distance to the westbound lanes.
    Getting off at Wall at 10:36. Not a hell of a lot to Wall, a dirty old South Dakota town with a triple track railroad. Wall Drug, a lot of buildings, a lot of cheap junk, Wall Auto Livery, Deadwood Historic Main Street, back onto I-90 at 10:57.
    Passing the road to the Badlands and Wounded Knee, a big brontosaurus to my left. Jackson County at 11:10. Rolling yellow prairie with naked solitary trees, some nice winding gullies, creeks and ponds, still an overcast sky with no cloud definition, side road parallels the highway on the right, the railroad long gone. Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, a big pond or reservoir off to my right.
    Into the Central Time Zone at 11:53, now 12:53. Little water birds, not ducks or gulls, down there in a pond to my right.
    US 83 south at 1:08, temp 45, gently rolling prairie, not a house in sight, a nice little creek winding through the plains, black cattle in the distance to the left, on the right goats (though they may have been antelope, I didn;t get a good look), then several fields with bales of rolled hay scattered around them. Looking down now at a little pond to my left, to the right a farmhouse with a rusted tin roof that looks like it;s abandoned, a lot of waterholes along this stretch of US 63, really nice country, rolling, brown hills ahead of me dotted with pines, what looks like a mud flat over there, what may sometimes be a lake, White River, 3 or 4 horses in a field. Hills have flattened down a bit, sky still overcast but brighter, a junkyard with cars and trucks, some interesting hills way off to my left, then back to rolling hill after rolling hill with deep valleys in between them. The town of White River population 595 and the Dollar Days Casino at 1:35, temp up to 50. A hillside of black Angus crowded up against each other in a field where there was plenty of space for them.
    Welcome to the Rosebud Indian Reservation at 1:48, more black cattle, the sky brighter.
    US 83 joins US 18 at 1:53. Welcome to Mission at 1:56. Soldier Woman Art and Gift Gallery, Starlite Snack Shop, a trailer in terrible shape and a lot of junk scattered on a lot alongside a house, other houses pretty nice and in good shape. A hawk flew across the road at 2:16, just before the Rosebud Casino at the Nebraska border.