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Blogs by Joel Arnold
Wall Drug - why it's one of my favorite places 2/2/2011 1:49:59 PM
Whenever I head out west on I-90, I always look forward to stopping at Wall Drug in South Dakota. A tourist trap? You bet; in fact, it doesn't get much more tourist-trappy than Wall Drug. But it's that excess that draws me to it. It's such an over-the-top tourist trap that I find it impossible to ward off its charms, cheesy as they may be. I always stop in, stroll past the mannequins, wind my way through the multitude of shops to the cafeteria, get my maple-iced donut and 5-cent cup of coffee, meander through the 'backyard' and then head on back out, all the while with a big silly grin on my face, as if I'd just gotten a contact high at a Grateful Dead concert.
It's not just that they've taken kitsch and made it their god; it's because they offer a welcome relief to the same old crap you see in nearly every town - the same fast-food restaurants, the same Wal-marts and Walgreens, the same Starbucks and Ihops...
Wall Drug is its own gaudy entity, transcending its tourist-trap label and shining in the wilderness like a 1970's cop-show hooker decked out in a day-glo tube top, spiked pumps, and a perm bejeweled with faux-diamonds. How could you not walk away with a silly grin on your face?
