I have not written a blog entry in far too long, I've been so busy this past week, all I want to do when I get home is pass out and drink wine. We are right in the middle of biker week (the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally) and I have never seen so much leather and so many tattoos in my entire life. The biker gangs all come in their signature leather vests, with patches on them saying crude phrases... one gang wears a patch that says "1%", meaning they are the 1% of the population that will do ANYTHING they want, e.g. shoot you in the face if you give them the wrong glance. The women are the worst, though. Most of them are naked and wear body paint... most of them are also 400lbs. One woman had to be escorted out of the park because she was just completely topless; a visitor complained that the site of her nipples was too offensive for anyone to ever have to look at.
People are such hypocrites, too. One biker woman was complaining that the audio tours we offer for 5 bucks are way too expensive... Really?? The 3 bags of souvenirs she was holding and the tattoos that were covering every inch of her body must have been free then.
These four large biker dudes were asking directions from Mt. Rushmore to Crazy Horse Memorial when a small Asian man interrupted them and said to them, "Oh, you don't want to go Crazy Horse... too many motorcycles there." I fear for his life.
Speaking of Crazy Horse Memorial, this woman walks into the information center yesterday and says to me, "I just have to say, the museum at Crazy Horse is beautiful, but I'm so happy that the museum here at Mt. Rushmore is equally as beautiful because, you know, we really do need to honor the white man." I gave her the weirdest look (because that was naturally a bizarre thing for her to say) and she then said to me, "no offense."
In other news, I ventured to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation on the South Dakota/Nebraska border last night with my fellow ranger friend Stephanie. I honestly have never seen such poverty in my entire life. People live in trailers that are falling down... tires line the roofs so they don't blow away in the wind... The Reservation is also dry, which means that everyone goes to the nearest town outside of the reservation (Whiteclay, Nebraska) to buy alcohol. We went to that town, and people were passed out--holding bottles of booze--on the sides of the roads. As depressed as this Reservation was, and as depressing as my trip there was, I'm glad I went, and it only reinforces my belief that it's hypocritical that so many Americans focus on rebuilding other nations' depressed communities, yet we have our own destitution right here in our own borders that no one is doing anything about.
Anyway, enough of my tirades; some of the rangers went to this awesome restaurant/bar the other night called Thirsty's... I am determined to order Rocky Mountain Oysters (deep-fried cow testicles) while I am here, and had the opportunity to the other night at Thirsty's when I saw them on the menu. I asked the waitress for the "Ball Basket" (as it was called), but sadly, she replied, "We only have the larger ball platter at the moment, which comes with more balls, as well as buffalo wings, fried mushrooms..." Can't a guy just order a regular amount of balls?!
Anyway, I'm off to Walmart (which everyone here calls "Wally World." ....am I the only person who has never heard of it referred to as this before???)
Later!
Jake
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