"Over the last six weeks, as I’ve steered my old Volvo up and down hills, across plains and through thick forests, I’ve frequently fallen into a hypnotic groove. The right music will come on the iPod — the Rolling Stones, or a plaintive Neko Case lyric, or naïve pop from 1960s Cambodia — and the sun will wring stunning purples out of stone or mysteriously frost the wheat fields at dusk. It’s at these times that the road seems to drive me, the car hugging the curves unbidden, and I want to shut my eyes and hold onto these moments until I careen off the asphalt to my doom. And so it’s amazing that I survived South Dakota, which offered such moments with terrifying regularity. I entered from the southeast, where the plains stretch so far that 40 miles would zip by and I’d hardly notice. Next came the long, slow hills around Lake Francis Case, deep green and dotted with pitch-black cattle. Then the Badlands, where canyons and spires evoke an eerie desolation. At last, near the border with Wyoming, I hit the Black Hills, where forests crowd the old logging tracks — some blacktop, others gravel. In a blink the pines and aspens gave way to mountain pastures and the sun sliced through ominous rain clouds to produce light of startling clarity. I didn’t want to stop. But stop I did, for there was one place I had to see: the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. This is the home of the Oglala Lakota Sioux, historically one of the worst-treated Native American tribes, as well as one of the most romanticized (see “Dances With Wolves”). Poverty is endemic, along with diabetes and alcoholism. And its struggles with the federal government have been storied and tragic. As an American citizen, I felt a certain duty to witness the effects of my government’s actions. And as the Frugal Traveler, I figured some time on one of the country’s poorest reservations wouldn’t hurt my wallet." Get the Story:
Scraping By With a South Dakota Tribe (The New York Times 6/27)
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