Highway 83 SouthDakota...

This is the last leg of our Highway 83 amble for the year.  While crossing into South Dakota we were met with the most interesting signs of welcome and warmth which we were not accustomed to in our travels.   You probably notice that these signs were shot facing north because the daytime light is in the southern hemisphere shining north, except in the morning before 10:30 or so, so you work with what you have.   Being that the sign was produced by South Dakota, other side (entering the state) provides a more elaborated exposition of the glories of South Dakota, but in the same understated manner, so you get the idea.  In looking at other people's images on the internet, I am often amazed at how many of the signs, buildings and other things they shoot are back lit,  poorly illuminated, and while the subject matter may be good, the photos are dull and don't pop off the screen.  I can't tell you how many photo ops I have missed for this reason or have taken anyway, but wouldn't bore you with them.

The connection and mutual appreciation of a people organically united in the cause of existence and mutual self reliance at the most primal level of interrealtedness that the prairies demand in order to survive is something that I know someone from the east could never begin to understand, so I won't try.  The rest of us are about fragmentation, self absorption , and increasingly uncivil discord, with a lost sense of common purpose and the loss of a unifying self, with ideology trumping common cause.  The beginning of the end.

At the intersection of North and South Dakota on the 83 which you can see in the right hand corner of the second photo if you click on it to enlarge it.

While reviewing my photos for this leg of the journey, I found that I didn't take many photos in South Dakota.  I was still traumatized by the ongoing invasion of the sunflower people...

and photo fatigue caused by the brain numbing sameness that the prairies induce.  I know there was a lot more to see, but we were tired, it was late, and we needing to get to Valentine, Nebraska before it was too late.  While we did stop at the few towns along the way, which were fewer and further between, Agar, SD was the only one we ended up spending any time in, probably because of the imposing grain elevators that greeted us.

There wasn't much of a cohesive town in terms of contiguous buildings at this point in the town's devolution, just a post office and a few interesting buildings, but no place to buy a quart of milk at 9 pm or have a beer with friends...

Looks exactly like the PO in Moffit, ND.  The post office dept. must have been sowing the seeds of their irrelevance by regressing to irrelevant buildings that would be no loss to someone someday.  Too bad.

As I said, the down town was fragmented and there was not much more to see.  But the sunflowers were a foreboding presence as always...

Obviously shot in the later afternoon because the sunflowers are all facing east and bowed in prayer...

Our last stop in South Dakota was to fill up at a Sinclair Station in Blunt, ND, and then a straight run to Valentine, Nebraska as evening descended...

I know there is a lot more to see in South Dakota, but we made the decision to stay close to Highway 83, I'm sure photo fatigue blinded me to all there was to see...As always, next time.

                                                                    Pablo