Rapid and the West

Rapid City, South Dakota, my current place of residence, is an interesting town. Attached to a state that is firmly Midwest, Rapid City belongs to the West. On the right bank of the bisecting Missouri you find healthy farms harvesting corn and soybeans, with towns spaced every 10 miles or so apart, and a city that has more in common with Des Moines than Cheyenne. Flatness and the accompanying wind defines the right bank. Rapid, and its left bank neighbors ranch rolling hills and dried out high plains. Towns are less plentiful. The Black Hills and the scraggly badlands act as warning beacons to would-be travelers--visible signs of a difficult and dangerous land.