Starry Starry Night in South Dakota

Went for breakfast in Broken Bow this morning and picked a table at random. As I was looking through the menu I heard a familiar accent from behind me where a family were having breakfast, I asked them where they from and they were from Wolverhampton, England. Breakfast was then postponed while we talked about how friendly the local people were. A group of local American ladies then joined the conversation and what should have been a quick breakfast turned into an extended one.



Before I entered the café I had noticed the local sheriff outside and I asked if I could take his photo and with that typical American generosity agreed to the photo.



Stopped off at a gas station (that's a petrol station to you Brits) to use the restroom (that's a toilet to you Brits) and noticed this very English-looking church spire. I had to ask the gas station attendant for the name of the town and it's called Anselmow village in Custer County, Nebraska.





I was driving through the town of Valentine, Nebraska and spotted all the hearts running down the main street. For someone whose birthday falls on Valentine's Day I just had to pull over and walk around. Valentine was once famous as a town not just for its name but also for the time zone which split the main street in two. It was said that the main post office which was near the dividing line between the two zones used to compromise by putting their clock back half an hour during daylight savings time. Valentine also accepts thousands of items of Valentine's Day mail so it can be it can receive a special postmark and verse.





I was walking past this Wells Fargo bank when I heard a woman's voice coming from a loudspeaker saying "Good morning Mary, and how are you today?". I realised she was a bank teller speaking to a drive-thru customer. I seem to remember a bank in Edinburgh many years ago trialling a drive-thru system but didn't seem to last very long.



This very fine figure of an American Indian stands in Valentine's main street.



In Australia Durex is the biggest selling brand of plasters or Band-Aids, In the US it appears that Durex is make of anti-freeze whereas in Britain Durex is the biggest selling condom brand. This could cause some problems depending if a customer asked for Durex and received something completely different.



Popped into this café for a coffee and asked the waitress if they served apple pie and the answer was yes. And it was home-made and it was delicious.



This is the exterior of my latest stay, the Triangle Ranch B&B which is in South Dakota. This house was ordered in kit form from a Sears catalogue in the 1920's and was delivered on two railroad cars and then took two weeks to move the materials by horse and wagon to its present location.



Exterior lit by the setting sun/



Setting sun illuminates the landscape.



Entrance to the Triangle B&B.



Further down the approach road is this view of typical South Dakota landscape.

I went out for a meal at a steakhouse in the nearby town of Philip. The meal was very good but I had to go into the bar to pay the check (That's the bill to all you Brits) and it was full of cowboys, real genuine cowboys with jeans and Stetson hats and not dressing up either. You could tell they had come in after a hard working day.

When I arrived back at the B&B I looked up to see one of the best starry nights I have ever seen. With such clear skies and so far from any town lights the night sky just shone with stars.