On our way up to see eldest son at college, we stopped at a truck stop in Central City. Wife paid for our coffees with cash, getting a couple dollars in change.

I waited holding the door open. It took her forever to get the bills into her wallet. They were well worn and too soft to slide into the slot.

"Been shoved into too many bras and panties."

She said that, not me. Don't think she's been into even one of those clubs where women (or men) get dollar bills slipped into their panties and bras. I have (in at least three different states), but I was pretty sure she hadn't.

But I could be wrong.

We noticed SoDak still has up the little highway signs that identify the civic group that volunteers for trash pickup along the highway.

The Governor had said they would all be down by the end of September, but we saw quite a few still up.

Why were they all coming down?

Because one section of a highway is cleaned by a gay and lesbian organization. And the Highway Department refused to identify them on a state sign. The group sued and won. So the Governor's solution was to not have any groups identified, rather than point out to the world that gays and lesbians can and will pick up trash. But as of 30 September the signs were still up.

Not sure if they decided to identify the gay group or not.

Would be interesting to see if that stretch of highway accumulated more trash or less.

When our local Sheriff's office adopted a nearby stretch, I expected to see piles and piles of trash show up.

It didn't.

We were listening to a Lakota station as we headed over the Black Hills. And they said "shit" on the radio. Loud and clear.

Wife remarked that in SoDak you can say "shit" on the radio, but you can't identify gay people picking up trash.

Weird.

Our highways often get closed because of blizzards, and occassionally because of severe accidents or construction blasting.

But in SoDak they close Highway 36 for a bison round-up.

Really.

Not sure why they need to close the highway when they round up the bison in Custer State Park. Do the tourists park along the road and pose a hazard, like in Yellowstone?

Do the bison occassionally jump the fence? Or do they use the highway right-of-way as a chute for the corral?

But they really do close the highway.

And they call them "bison."

So the state's not all bad.

In Hot Springs, the town dump is called a "Material Recovery Facility."

Really.