After they'd turned a few corners and left downtown behind them, Gojyo spoke, breaking their stunned silence. "What the hell was that, anyway?" Nobody had an answer.

Momentarily they turned into the driveway of a long, low-slung building. "Hey, it's the Corn Palace Motel. How appropriate," Gojyo noted.

"Oh boy! A restaurant!" exulted Goku.

Two hours later, they retired to their two shared rooms, their stomachs burdened with far too much heavy, grease-laden mid-American food. It was only mid-afternoon, yet all agreed they were tired enough to sleep, so after showers all around, the doors were locked and Hakkai, Jeep and Gojyo, at least, abandoned themselves to blissful sleep at last.

Unfortunately for Sanzo, Goku had discovered a unique feature in the motel room. "Can I please have another quarter?" Gokuu begged. "It's fun to make the bed jiggle!"

Sanzo sighed heavily and threw a handful of change at Goku. "Knock yourself out." He then turned his back on Goku, who sat giggling madly on his bed as the Magic Fingers Massage-O-Unit kicked into noisy action yet again, and added silently, please, PLEASE do us all a favor and knock yourself out...

In the morning, after coffee only at the restaurant (from that day forward, Gojyo would grimace if you said "patty melt" to him) and fruit from the grocery store, they headed westward yet again.

"Hey!" exclaimed Goku, spying a big, flubsy billboard some miles down the road. "Wall Drug! What's that? Can we go? Huh? Can we go there? I bet it'd be cool! Oh, hey, cool, the billboard has a jackalope on it! Do you think they have jackalopes there? It sounds cool, you guys--can we stop? Huh? Can we? Huh? Please? You guys--"

And Sanzo, riding in the back seat with Gokuu, smiled grimly to himself, reached into his pocket--and, when Goku was turned away, put the corn holders to use.

The vast South Dakota prairie echoed with Goku's howl of pain and indignation, and then with endless bickering and squabbling as the little green Jeep headed towards the west.

The Hayabusa Sisters have never been to South Dakota. They are deeply indebted to Doug Pappas' website, www.roadsidephotos.com, without which this story could not have been written, and to the kind eBay sellers who were so happy to sell them Corn Palace postcards, they threw in extras to boot! Required reading:Roadside America, by Jack Barth, Doug Kirby, Ken Smith & Mike Wilkins (1986, Fireside/Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0-671-60688-3). This story is dedicated to Kagenami Q, who knows what it's like to drive all night and sleep in the car in a rest area.

This page was created September 21, 2003. Last updated September 21, 2003.