Roadside attraction creepiness: South Dakota

By psychologistmimi on August 20, 2015 • ( 7 Comments )

One of the best aspects of cross-country road trips are the signs, billboards and random artifacts you come across. In the United States you can come across a lot of kitsch. There is even a book and now website about roadside America. Thus, whenever I go on a road trip, which is quite frequent, I bring my camera and am ready to snap away. Just last month, I took my 5th cross-country road trip across the US. Instead of I-80 we took I-90 for a change in scenery. And boy it was worth it! South Dakota, in particular, provided me with tons to photograph. I snapped away close to 1000 photos across the 300 odd miles it takes to get across South Dakota.

As we were speeding away (a particularly good part of traveling on I-90 up north) we came across a giant “bull head” along a South Dakota stretch of I-90. From afar it is a level of crazy creepiness that gets more haunting as you get closer to it. Roadside attractions serve to activate your imagination and get you thinking about what you are doing in that moment in time. They wake you up from the rolling landscapes to jar you into the moment, into the here and now.

A bull head on a road trip! It doesn’t get better than that. As I peered over at it I wondered what was waiting for me at the end of the road. I have been told, especially as a Taurus, that I am especially bullheaded. The bull on my new path reminded me that I can be bullheaded and that more often than not I needed to be. In this new role that I have taken on, I particularly have to stand very firm and not be swayed by the various winds (meaning blowhards) coming at me from all sides.

Thank you South Dakota for reminding me that I am a bull and will stand firm in the face of all adversity.