The Land of No Tolls

Woke up in South Dakota and surprisingly found
No rain. No lightning. No thunder. It’s a good day.
Get on the road for a long day of driving towards
Seattle – Nuvi Gipsy (almost reluctantly) guides us.
South Dakota is flat like a pre-Galilean earth, until
You hit the Missouri river. Then it’s mountain-country
For a while.
We came upon a trucker who was far angrier than was
Necessary. We’re not sure if his anger was borne of his Napoleon
Complex, his illiteracy, his inability to grow a moustache that
Can be taken seriously, or the fact that he was transporting
Crickets. Anyway, we passed him. Then he passed us.
So we passed him again, only to get re-passed by this
Half-mustachio’d Christmas elf from Utah. Game on, Broheme.
We pass him again and get it on tape. “Congratulations, Dev & Martin,”
We thought, “you won the battle.”
Wrong.
This tiny little goblin-like creature comes up on our right once again.
Out with the video camera. Let’s get this Gollum wanna-be on tape.
Oh, how superior we thought we were.
And how surprised and shocked we both were when
We realized that this little cricket guy was taping us!
He must have gotten wind of the show in Chicago (no pun intended)
And realized that he was playing “king of the road” with
Two international superstars. I’m sure he’s following the blog now.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he set up his own blog,
Following the progress of ours.
Or maybe he was just pissed – who knows?
Either way, this little man fell from the ugly tree and hit
Every branch on the way down. I can’t say I wouldn’t be angry
If I were 5’2”, 130 lbs and looked like a cross between
Darth Vader without his mask and one of those Orcs from
Lord of the Rings, you know, not the big badass ones,
The little filthy, sleazy ones. I think cricket man has taken up enough
Space here. Let’s move on.
We pulled into Ghost Town, South Dakota to gas up and
Decided to record a few songs in front of the beautiful landscape
We encountered there. A few passers-by
Stopped to talk to us. Turns out they live about
5 miles away from Dev’s house. Coincidence? Probably.
Either way, we gave them a CD and continued recording.
We also purchased South Dakota trucker hats for the
Ridiculous price of $3.50. Who could pass that up? Not us.
Update: Soda is not soda here – it’s Pop. And it only costs
10 cents. Coffee is 5 cents. We may or may not have traveled back to
the 1920’s.
We passed Rapid City, SD and saw absolutely no rapids.
In fact, the only thing that was rapid about it
Was the speed at which we passed it by.
Wyoming lasted for about 7 minutes, but gave us no
Trouble. The skies were not quite what our girls from
RJ promised, but maybe we caught them on an
Off-day.
We soon passed into Montana, which is by far
The prettiest place we’ve driven through so far.
Flat plains, snow-capped mountains, and the greenest
Hillsides. Montana’s got it all.
We stopped and recorded two more songs
As the sun was going down behind us.
If I could do college all over again, I would strongly
Consider Chief Dull Knife College in Lame Deer, Montana,
Just so I can say I go to Chief Dull Knife College
In Lame Deer, Montana if anyone asks. I mean, come on.
The name alone is worth the tuition.
We kept driving into the night, but not before
Purchasing some local beer, called “Moose Drool.”
We’re pretty excited to try it.
We arrived at a rest stop at around 2:30 AM
And decided to call it a night.
Tomorrow brings us into Seattle.
Take care of yourselves.

Here are some stats:

Miles Driven: 2,774.6
$ Spent on Gas: 793.72
$ Spent on Tolls: 85.65
$ Spent on Tolls in MN, SD, WY, MT: 0.00
CDs Given Away: 21
Cricket Men Pissed Off: 0.75
Songs Recorded: 5
Cities Visited: 1
Cows Seen: ∞
P.S.: We’ll start the text-message contest
With tomorrow’s blog, since we’re updating them
A day late. Relax, okay? We’re only human.