The best eleven dollars.

I'm on such a mission to get to Indiana by Memorial Day Weekend, I haven't camped at a single park. The one I was most likely to camp at was flooded out in North Dakota, and all the rest seem half hearted compared to it. Really, how can any park compare after spending nearly a week in Yellowstone? I loved Devil's Tower for its small but impressive presence (the tower itself is big, but the road through the park is little more than a mile). The Black Hills have a presence that makes you wonder if the Native Americans were right that the world was formed from that spot. The Badlands and the Grand Canyon open before you, like the mouths of the earth, with rows of colorful teeth that you aren't even significant enough to be caught in. I feel lucky to have seen all of these in the last few years. I am now in the small minority of Americans who have. In these places, I tend to run into tourists, mostly from Europe, on their Grand American Holidays where they tour "all" of the National Parks. I start to think more Europeans have seen the parks than Americans. How sad that we are so lucky to have these wonders in our country, yet so few of us appreciate them? I know the weekend cruise ship to Ensenada is more full than the parks are with locals.

Still, it's places like Pictograph Cave, Shades, and Pine Hills I like to go back to. Smaller state parks. They are less noticed, less grand. No tour buses stop especially for them. The locals treat them like very complicated exercise tracks.

I have been thinking of all the amazing places that were saved, marked as State or National Parks. Cynically, I assume they were saved not because they were amazing, but because no one knew how to develop them. Grand Canyon Caverns remains private, despite being one of the largest dry caves in the world. Early developers were searching for gold. In absence of that, they created an early tourist attraction, complete with real native skeletons (which were eventually returned for a proper burial). Merimeck Caves manage to escape this fate, though they did serve as a Halloween attraction and dance hall for a while. But when settlers named the shadowy canyons with the heavy canopy of trees and strange rock formations the Shades of Death, you know no one was going to rush in there to start a cattle farm. No, it was superstition that saved it, I'm sure. And I love it all the more for it. What about the beautiful places that could be developed? Ancient forests, glittering rock formations, deep and fertile swamps, all gone. We get to imagine them. Sometimes, there is an eighteenth century painting to remind us.

I go on like this because I think about these parks every time I pass them and don't stop. What does this little park offer? Maybe I will stop next time.

I did vow that I would not sleep at a Walmart this trip. I'm boycotting them if I can manage it. The first night, I stayed at a North Dakota Rest Stop. You aren't supposed to, but all the truckers were. It was a nice enough bathroom, and it had free WiFi, so I couldn't resist. The second night, I slept at a truck stop. No free WiFi. There was coffee and donuts for purchase in the morning, a powerful laxative without a powerful meal.

Tonight, I'd hoped to stay at a rest stop. Truckers tend to sleep with their engines on, and they leave very early in the morning. By 7, the rest stop was deserted except for me, and was quiet and pleasant. The truck stop has a constant stream of trucks coming in and out, new ones taking the place of the departing. But rest stops, despite their name, are not, apparently, meant for overnight sleeping. The one I stopped at had posted signs and only three truckers were risking it. I decided to keep driving rather than waiting for a three AM wake-up call.

I had one other motivation for returning to the truck stop option... A shower. It is Friday night, and I last showered Wednesday morning. My scalp was itching and I felt a little like the crazy-person-wandered-in at the museums today. Truck stops offer, in exchange for money, access to a small, locked room with a questionable toilet and hot shower for as long as you want. I gladly paid the eleven dollars and was amused to find they had tried to make the room up like a hotel. Or how they imagined it. There was a very dusty plastic ivy plant hanging from the wall. There was a stack of folded orange towels on a small wooden bench. The top towel, a wash cloth, was faded several shades lighter than the other towels. On top, a small bar of paper-wrapped soap and a peppermint candy. I kid you not. The trashcan wasn't empty. In it were some tissues and the peppermint of the previous occupant.

But, the water was hot and refreshing, the stall large and accommodating, the liquid soap dispenser mild smelling, and the vanity shelf under the mirror only barely blocked the outlet from the plug for my hair dryer. All in all, a pleasant experience. I did bring my own towel.