Day 53: Badlands?

The plan for the day was to drive through the Badlands and make it through South Dakota.  But then life happens...

It started out with putting the wrong visitor center into Google Maps.  It dutifully directed us to the South end of the Badlands, away from the Interstate.  By the time we realized this we were too far down the road to turn around.  So we changed plans of what we would see.

We heard the 2 year old screaming in the back.  He was suppose to be listening to an audio book.  But he stuck the ear bud up his nose and the rubber end came off.  Luckily he still had the right nostril to breathe.  And the ear bud piece has a hole in it.  And he could always open his mouth.  This is not quite an emergency, but he was not happy.

We made it to the visitor center.  A ranger was talking to another visitor in the parking lot.  When you interrupt a ranger he will readily forgive you if you use the words "doctor", "medical", and "2 year old" in the first sentence.  The short version is that they did not have any medical equipment there.  The best they had was paleontology tools.  I had the choice of going to Wall for an urgent care clinic or Philip for a hospital.  We decided to head towards Wall.

Wall Drug is a famous tourist trap.  While I was at the Urgent Care trying to dig out the ear bud, the family found a parking spot at Wall Drug.  We failed at removing the ear bud.  Those things are slippery.  So before we head to the Hospital, we walked around Wall Drug.  In the back is a dinosaur.  The 2 year old got a set of dinosaurs for Christmas.  He named them "Joe", "Moo", "Cock-a-doodle-doo", "Meow".  This dinosaur was a "Joe" (T-Rex).  But he was big and scary.  He was not a "Joe".  We named him "Ralph".

We got to Philip's hospital.  It was a 1-story building.  The emergency room had 2 beds.  We took the one on the right.  After we arrived, they paged the doctor.  He skillfully fished out the ear bud.  Problem solved.  But I am very thankful of the medical services where I live.  There are 2 hospitals next to my town.  There's Boston and Dartmouth within a short drive with world class doctors.  We had to drive pretty far to get to this hospital and it is much smaller than my town hospitals.

The Wall Drug Water Park

Ralph!