Explorations

Today was a "personal day," which meant we were supposed to move into our house, buy cell phones, get furniture, etc. Neither Luke nor I had much to drop off at our house, and our house wasn't really available for furniture or anything like that, so we just ended up exploring. We borrowed a car from Matt Kull, our program director, and drove over to Pine Ridge this morning listening to Bob Dylan and the Rolling Thunder Revue. Seemed like appropriate music.

I have picked up a bunch of crap during my time in Houston, so we got let into our house and I dropped some of this in the foyer. The house isn't completely ready yet--the carpets have to be shampooed and some other cleaning is necessary, but it's fairly nice. My camera died, but Luke took a bunch of shots.

A coulple of shots of the exterior.


This is the den, which is just inside the front door.


This linoleum space is directly connected to the den. I imagine we'll have a dining room table here.


Two shots of our small, narrow kitchen.





One of the bedrooms.


Our bathroom.


The backyard.



After we dropped everything off, Luke and I drove down to the gas station/grocery store in town to pick up something to drink. We asked the cashier how to get to Wolf's Table, which is the canyon where Adam, my math teacher/XC coach predecessor did a lot of his running. She directed us to a dirt road across the street and told us to drive up that way four miles. It was an interesting drive, including a couple cows grazing in the road (see the pictures) and a rough patch of sand which caused a big billow to blow up and get sand all over the interior of Matt's car (sorry, Matt). After a couple miles we could catch some glimpses of the badlands through the trees. Eventually we had to turn off onto a smaller road, which ended in a turnaround. We were both pretty giddy when we got out of the car and saw just how extensive the canyons were. We walked out a little ways, but the rocks were pretty crumbly and I didn't want to tumble to the bottom of the canyon. I'm pretty sure there are a couple of other turn offs that end up at the bottom of the canyon. This is probably where I will be running every day.

These cows were standing in the middle of the road as we drove out to the Table. They gave us a very funny look when we drove by.


Some shots of the entire extent of our badlands.






Me at the top of Wolf's Table.


Luke at Wolf's Table.





After taking off from Wolf's Table, Luke and I drove up to Kadoka, the closest "town" to Wanblee. It's actually a slightly smaller town than Wanblee (750 v. 716 or so), but because it is just off I-90 I think there is a little more going on. We bought some deodorant and other essentials in the grocery store and then ate a lunch in the park next door. I tried to get a haircut at "Creative Cuts and Fitness," which struck me as an odd combination, but the two gentlemen inside told me that she, presumably the barber, was gone till 1, and then had a perm scheduled, so I wouldn't be able to get my haircut till 4. So I skipped that.

Luke and I headed on to Interior. We had to take a scenic byway through Badlands National Park, and the brief 5 miles that we saw were pretty spectacular. They tried to charge us $15 to enter the park, but we claimed we were local traffic. The ranger didn't believe us, and told us that if we stopped and got out of our cars we would be fined. There was no need to get out of the cars, because everyone ahead of us was driving very slowly, gawking, and it took us forever to make it 5 miles back out of the park. I figured Interior was a fairly big town, since it is mentioned prominently in most of the tourist books I've looked at. Turns out the population is 67. We took a couple shots, bought another couple drinks, and talked to a local guy in a Native American crafts shop. When we said we'd be teaching in Wanblee next year, he said we were braver than we looked, and that reservation kids were pretty wild. Seems to be a pretty common stereotype amongst the white folks around here, but I don't feel like I have a whole lot of reasons to trust his authority.

Here is the Interior jail. Looks like it is not much good except for locking up drunks.


Welcome to Interior. I think there might be some embellishments here.