Is This What the Grocery Store Looked Like On the "The Long Desolate Road"?
"At one stretch in the long desolate road we see an isolated grocery store. Inside, in back, we find a place to sit on some packing cases and drink canned beer. .. The fatigue and backache are getting to me now. I push the packing case over to a post and lean on that. .. Chris’s expression shows he is really settling into something bad. This has been a long hard day. I told Sylvia way back in Minnesota that we could expect a slump in spirits like this on the second or third day and now it’s here. Minnesota—when was that? .. A woman, badly drunk, is buying beer for some man she’s got outside in a car. She can’t make up her mind what brand to buy and the wife of the owner waiting on her is getting mad. She still can’t decide, but then sees us, and weaves over and asks if we own the motorcycles. We nod yes. Then she wants a ride on one. I move back and let John handle this. ,, He puts her off graciously, but she comes back again and again, offering him a dollar for a ride. I make some jokes about it, but they’re not funny and just add to the depression. We get out and back into the brown hills and heat again."
Somewhere near Watauga, SD. Mark Richardson says, in his new book, that he thinks he found this store as he followed the ZMM Route. It was in Watauga, SD, a town that was half way between Macintosh and McLaughlin. Although I was not able to identify what he saw, this is the best I found. The location where I got this photo is probably not correct.
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(Photo = Summer2006 0306 ...... ZMM Page = 050 ...... WayPt = 062k ~2000ft)

Sunset & Clouds.
"What we have here is a conflict of visions of reality. The world as you see it right here, right now, is reality, regardless of what the scientists say it might be. That’s the way John sees it. But the world as revealed by its scientific discoveries is also reality, regardless of how it may appear, and people in John’s dimension are going to have to do more than just ignore it if they want to hang on to their vision of reality. John will discover this if his points burn out.“
MacIntosh, SD. is announced by elevator seen in the distance. A weak gust of wind sounds in my ears. Redwinged Blackbirds call in the distance. This is strangely comforting to me, despite otherwise silent lonely terrain. As the ZMM Narrator reminds us; In this isolate area, any mechanical or health problem will intrude into YOUR reality!! As was my practice, I had stopped to photograph “town arrival”. Then I realized the dramatic clouds qualified for a 360 deg panorama. Instructions will be given in the second photo next.
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(Photo = 104-0401 ...... ZMM Page = 049 ...... WayPt = 064`|x|' 2264ft)

Clouds & Sunset & Open Space. The buildings of the next town are seen In the distance.
"That’s really why he got upset that day when he couldn’t get his engine started. It was an intrusion on his reality. It just blew a hole right through his whole groovy way of looking at things and he would not face up to it because it seemed to threaten his whole life style. In a way he was experiencing the same sort of anger scientific people have sometimes about abstract art, or at least used to have. That didn’t fit their life style either. .. What you’ve got here, really, are two realities, one of immediate artistic appearance and one of underlying scientific explanation, and they don’t match and they don’t fit and they don’t really have much of anything to do with one another. That’s quite a situation.“
Clouds & Sunset MacIntosh, SD. These black clouds did produce a violent thunderstorm later that night. As you will see in the next days rainy day pictures, this apparently is the advanced edge of a new weather system. Although clear the next morning, took some 8 hours for the stormy cold skies to finally clear away. Ahead, were 7 miles of removed pavement and soft rutted mud. The new highway should be there now!
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(Photo = 103-03409c ...... ZMM Page = 049 ...... WayPt = 064`|x|' 2264ft)

Sunset & Clouds & Lone Windmill.
"At one stretch in the long desolate road we see an isolated grocery store. Inside, in back, we find a place to sit on some packing cases and drink canned beer. .. The fatigue and backache are getting to me now. I push the packing case over to a post and lean on that. .. Chris’s expression shows he is really settling into something bad. This has been a long hard day. I told Sylvia way back in Minnesota that we could expect a slump in spirits like this on the second or third day and now it’s here. Minnesota...when was that? .. A woman, … offering him [John] a dollar for a ride. I make some jokes about it, but they’re not funny and just add to the depression. We get out and back into the brown hills and heat again.“
Morristown, SD. Please let me know if you have location information about the store mentioned above by Narrator. I stop here to “shoot” the windmill, but then realize good place for a panorama series before the last glow of the sunset winks out. View panorama new browser window. (Alternate: If you have already viewed a panorama in a second (new) browser window, simply switch to it and choose the first Gallery Picture =
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(Photo = 104-0410c ...... ZMM Page = 049 ...... WayPt = 065`|w|' ft)

A Petrified Wood Wonderland and City Park.
"By the time we reach Lemmon we are really aching tired. At a bar we hear about a campground to the south. John wants to camp in a park in the middle of Lemmon, a comment that sounds strange and angers Chris greatly.“
City Park, Lemmon, SD. is seen here, next morning with last night’s rain still evident on the streets. Is this the “park in the middle of Lemmon” where John Sutherland wanted to camp? lt was dark when I arrived in Lemon, so I went directly to the "campground to the south”. This is at the Liewellyn Jones Recreation Area about 10 miles South on Rt73. As I started down Rt73, there was a big sign: “NO GAS FOR 70 MILES”. Truly this is semi-arid area of our country has sparse population and is far away from parts and repair services. Come prepared to deal with emergencies in your health and your vehicle. But be assured there will be plenty of friendly people who will help in any way they can. A word to the wise: One of your best preparations for traveling in this (or any) place, would be learning and practicing “maintenance” as advocated in ZMM itself.
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(Photo = 104-0428c ...... ZMM Page = 050 ...... WayPt = 074`|e|' ft)

Main Street & Business District Where Our ZMM Voygers Went Shopping For Camping Supplies. The City Park Where John Suggested Camping Is In Distance At Left of Street.
"I’m more tired now than I can remember having been in a long time. The others too. But we drag ourselves through a supermarket, pick up whatever groceries come to mind and with some difficulty pack them onto the cycles. The sun is so far down we’re running out of light. It’ll be dark in an hour. We can’t seem to get moving. I wonder, are we dawdling, or what? "C’mon, Chris, let’s go," I say. .. "Don’t holler at me. I’m ready.“ The
Business District, Lemmon, SD. The City Park, shown in the previous picture, is in distance where you see trees on both sides of the street. My Lemmon, SD. photos, with wet streets, were actually taken the next morning after I experienced the thunderstorm at the Shadehill Reservoir. (Shadehill Reservoir Campground photos now follow.)
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(Photo = 104-0429c ...... ZMM Page = 050 ...... WayPt = 073`|u|' 2571ft)

View of Lake and Campground Where Pirsig, Chris, John and Sylvia Camped the Second Night of Their Trip. "We drive down a county road from Lemmon, exhausted, for what seems a long, long time, but can’t be too long because the sun is still above the horizon. The campsite is deserted. Good. But there is less than a half-hour of sun and no energy left. This is the hardest now. .. I try to get unpacked as fast as possible but am so stupid with exhaustion I just set everything by the camp road without seeing what a bad spot it is. Then I see it is too windy. This is a High Plains wind. It is semidesert here, everything burned up and dry except for a lake, a large reservoir of some sort below us. The wind blows from the horizon across the lake and hits us with sharp gusts. It is already chilly. There are some scrubby pines back from the road about twenty yards … "
Campground Road, Liewellyn Jones Recreation Area, SD. Directions to get this photo location: Go South from Lemmon, ND, cross into S. Dakota on Rt 73 going some 20 miles, till you go down a grade and over a causeway with a lake on both sides. As you come up from the lake level to the top of the grade turn right (West) into the park. Almost immediately you will see a right turn (North) into a campground. Within 300 feet you will be driving along the edge of drop off to lake. (If you get to the town of Shadehill or Shadehill Reservoir, you have gone too far South. thanks to Lee Glover for this correction.) One of “Robert Pirsig’s 1968 Pictures, shows this same reservoir in the distance. However, in contrast to my pictures, Pirsig’s picture shows the reservoir and campground as relatively new. Please return here to these ZMMquality photos after viewing one Pirsig photo Detour in new browser frame for http://ww2.usca.edu/ResearchProjects/ProfessorGurr/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=Pictures-Robert-Pirsigs-original-1968-trip&id=d_LUNCHB.
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(Photo = 104-0425c ….. ZMM Page = 050 ...... WayPt = 067e)

104-0423c
-- 0451 The wind blows from the horizon across the lake and hits us with sharp gusts. It is already chilly. .. I see between trips that Sylvia is making a real effort at setting things up for cooking, but she’s as tired as I am. .. The sun goes down. .. John has gathered wood but it’s too big and the wind is so gusty it’s hard to start. It needs to be splintered into kindling. I go back over to the scrub pines, hunt around through the twilight for the machete, but it’s already so dark in the pines I can’t find it. I need the flashlight. I look for it, but it’s too dark to find that either.
@ 069e Petrified-Log Firepalace Shadehill Reservoir SD Rt73 is to East about ½ mile. Note dark clouds that produced rain later. Because I camped here (June 18 2002), prior to the onset of hot weather, the few mosquitoes that came after me were quite manageable. [To view dark photos, turn off lights near your computer.]

Campground & My Tent.
"A gibbous moon comes up from the horizon beyond the pines, and by its slow, patient arc across the sky I measure hour after hour of semisleep. Too much fatigue. The moon and strange dreams and sounds of mosquitoes and odd fragments of memory become jumbled and mixed in an unreal lost landscape in which the moon is shining and yet there is a bank of fog and I am riding a horse and Chris is with me and the horse jumps over a small stream that runs through the sand toward the ocean somewhere beyond.“
Campground, Shadehill Reservoir Lake, SD. where the Petrified-Log Fire-palace of previous photo, is by pink glow at left. The campground has been much improved since 1968 and is now a very nice place! The temperature was good for camping, but I experienced a violent thunderstorm that night, which produced much close-up lightning & monster wind gusts! I nearly always camped my entire ZMM Research Trip, from Minneapolis to San Francisco, and all my campgrounds, including this one, were good experiences.
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(Photo = 104-0422c ...... ZMM Page = 056 ...... WayPt = 068`|z' 2210ft)

How Can Plants Survive the Dry and Heat of this Tortured Land?
"… it’s already too hot to sleep. … Beyond the pines are burned grass and clumps of earth and sand so bright they are hard to look at. The heat, silence, and barren hills and blank sky give a feeling of great, intense space. .. Not a bit of moisture in the sky. Today’s going to be a scorcher. …" Need
Shadehill Reservoir, SD. This photo was taken in the "badlands", some 70 miles ahead. Most of my photos generally show lots of green vegetation in this area of the Dakotas and Eastern Montana. This is a considerable contrast to what the Narrator emphasizes again and again in ZMM. He repeatedly says how desolate and dry and burnt-up this landscape is. Especially from Lemon, SD. to Locate, MT. Remember that Pirsig arrived at this reservoir soon after the construction of this campground, There would have been little recovery of the grass and thus would lots of eroded bare earth, with rain deposited sand in places. Also remember that Pirsig came through nearly a month later than I did and well after water from winter snow and spring rain could have been completely exhausted. Yes, “burnt to a crisp” landscape could, in addition, be the finishing result of the “duesey of a heat wave” they experienced as they traveled from here into Eastern Montana. The facts do fit Pirsig’s writing concerning the Narrator’s “scorcher” heat wave. An 108 Degree Fahrenheit heat wave, in EXACTLY this same area, IS confirmed in the 9 July 1968 weather record!
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(Photo = Summer2006 0344 ...... ZMM Page = 057 ...... WayPt = 068 2210ft. Photo at 088`|w|' 2715ft)

Entrance Sign for the Business District Lemon, SD.
"On the road again the dry air cools off the slight sweat from that chain job and I’m feeling good for a while. As soon as the sweat dries off though, it’s hot. Must be in the eighties already. There’s no traffic on this road, and we’re moving right along. It’s a traveling day. … Page 062 I see we are at the left turn onto US 12 and John has pulled up for gas. ... The thermometer by the door of the station reads 92 degrees. "Going to be another rough one today," … When the tanks are filled we head across the street into a restaurant for coffee." This is Junction Where Rt73 arrives from South at Rt12.“
Lemon, SD. Lemmon town folk are clearly very proud of their Fantastic Petrified Wood Creations in their City Park. The building seen at the left is part of a Gas Station. The gas station reported by the Narrator is thus still there! This gas station has a quick-shop for YOUR coffee and doughnuts when you come this way! Several abandoned buildings nearby and on opposite side of Rt12, may once have had a Coffee-Donut Place.
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(Photo = 104-0426 ...... ZMM Page = 059 ...... WayPt = 071`|f|' 2577ft)

Grain Stores & Colloid Plant With Mining Lift Towers in Distance.
"When we have finished the coffee and are outside again the heat is so ferocious we move off on the cycles as fast as possible. Again there is that momentary coolness, but it disappears. The sun makes the burned grass and sand so bright I have to squint to cut down glare. This US 12 is old, bad highway. The broken concrete is tar-patched and bumpy. Road signs indicate detours ahead. On either side of the road are occasional worn sheds and shacks and roadside stands that have accumulated through the years. The traffic is heavy now. I’m just as happy to be thinking about the rational, analytical, classical world of Phædrus.“
Gascoyne, ND. is accessed by an excellent highway as seen in the photo, this highway is now in excellent condition, but the glare of the morning heat is also evident! Note clear deep blue sky (Cold Front?) that followed the rain I experienced the previous night. But later on, heavy stormy clouds came back, so I was actually cold until after I got to Eastern Montana. I also observed the “occasional worn sheds and shacks and roadside stands that have accumulated through the years”. View panorama in new browser window for this location.
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(Photo = 104-0436sr ...... ZMM Page = 063 ...... WayPt = 075`|x|' 2820ft)

Buildings In Distance Announce the Next Town.
"Heat is everywhere now. I can’t ignore it anymore. The air is like a furnace blast so hot that my eyes under the goggles feel cool compared to the rest of my face. My hands are cool but the gloves have big black spots from perspiration on the back surrounded by white streaks of dried salt. .. On the road ahead a crow tugs on some carrion and flies up slowly as we approach. It looks like a lizard on the road, dry and stuck to the tar. .. On the horizon appears an image of buildings, shimmering slightly. I look down at the map and it must be Bowman. I think about ice water and air conditioning.“
Bowman, ND. As my photos show, all of Rt12 from Mobridge, SD. to Miles City, MT, is now excellent highway. See caption three photos previous for more about the factual 9 July 1968 “record heat wave” the Narrator describes in the next 30 pages of ZMM.
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(Photo = 104-0441 ...... ZMM Page = 067 ...... WayPt = 076`|f|' 2965ft)

Business District and Big J Restaurant
"On the street and sidewalks of Bowman we see almost no one, even though plenty of parked cars show they’re here. All inside. We swing the machines into an angled parking place with a tight turn that points them outward, for when we’re ready to go.“
Bowman, ND. Where people at the Big J Restaurant were very friendly and helpful with my ZMM Route research. If you visit this (and any) restaurant, mid-morning on, be sure to strike up a conversation with the retirees, who will welcome the chance to tell you local history and sights. Also be sure to tell any restaurant/hotel/store staff that you are following the ZMM route. Once the motels, restaurants, gas stations, stores along the ZMM Route see there is a steady flow of ZMM enthusiastic customers, they will start to assemble ZMM related local information. This may help in historical preservation and keep these (and other historic ZMM related buildings along the ZMM Route) for future generations!
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(Photo = 104-0443c ...... ZMM Page = 067 ...... WayPt = 077`|u|' 2960ft)

A Lone Elderly Man with Broad-Brimmed Hat.
"A lone, elderly person wearing a broad-brimmed hat watches us put the cycles on their stands and remove helmets and goggles. .. "Hot enough for you?" he asks. His expression is blank. .. John shakes his head and says, "Gawd!" .. The expression, shaded by the hat, becomes almost a smile. .. "What is the temperature?" John asks… "Hundred and two," he says, "last I saw. Should go to hundred and four.".. He asks us how far we have come and we tell him and he nods with a kind of approval. "That’s a long way," he says. Then he asks about the machines. .. The beer and air conditioning are calling, but we don’t break away. We just stand there in the hundred-and-two sun talking to this person. He is a stockman, retired, says this is pretty much ranch country around here … “
Big J Restaurant, Bowman, ND. When I walk up to the Big J Restaurant, camera in hand, I encounter this Lone Elderly Man. This is by pure coincidence! This is almost too good to believe. Since he exactly fits the above passage I ask him to pause for this photo.
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(Photo = 104-0444c ...... ZMM Page = 067 ...... WayPt = 077`|u|' 2960ft)

Good Food! Good Service! Cautious, But Ultimately Friendly, People.
"… and he used to own a cycle years ago. It pleases me that he should want to talk about his Henderson [1925 era motorcycle] in this hundred-and-two sun. We talk about it for a while, with growing impatience from John and Sylvia and Chris, and when we finally say good-bye he says he is glad to have met us and his expression is still blank but we sense that he really meant it. He walks away with a kind of slow dignity in the hundred-and-two sun. … John and Sylvia look really out of it. … The waitress comes for the order and that snaps them out of it a little, … An image of the elderly man outside in the wide-brimmed hat comes back to me. "Think what it was like around here before air conditioning," I say.“
Big J Restaurant Bowman, ND. Here is where I explain my ZMM research and ask about the history of the Big J Restaurant. In response to my quiries, and un-be-knownst to me, local resident Les Snavely was summoned. Mr Snavely (in photo), who is himself a ZMM enthusiast, said the “lone elderly person” in ZMM was likely Bowman resident, Mr. Claud White, who DID own a Henderson! Mr. Snavely should know! He is an Antique Motorcycle Enthusiast. He is known all over USA for his expert knowledge (and extensive collection) of old cycles. Be sure to ask for him at The Big J!
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(Photo = 104-0446c ...... ZMM Page = 067 ...... WayPt = 077`|u|' 2960ft)

Bad Lands Southeastern North Dakota.
"Miles later and the heat is just ferocious. Sunglasses and goggles are not enough for this glare. You need a welder’s mask. .. The High Plains break up into washed-out and gullied hills. It is all bright whitish tan. Not a blade of grass anywhere. Just scattered weed stalks and rocks and sand. The black of the highway is a relief to look at so I stare down at it and study how the blur whizzes by underfoot. Beside it I see the left exhaust pipe has picked up a bluer color than it has ever had before. I spit on my glove tips, touch it and can see the sizzle. Not good. .. It’s important now to just live with this and not fight it mentally—mind control.“ Photos for
Ten miles East of Marmarth, ND. Click here for more views of badlands and links to maps and aerial views ov this area.
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(Photo = Summer2006 0342 ...... ZMM Page = 068 ...... WayPt = 077i)

The Badlands of Southwestern North Dakota Seem To Be Caused By a Considerable Layer of Volcanic Ash.
"What has become an urgent necessity is a way of looking at the world that does violence to neither of these two kinds of understanding [Classical & Romantic] and unites them into one. Such an understanding will not reject sand-sorting or contemplation of unsorted sand for its own sake. Such an understanding will instead seek to direct attention to the endless landscape from which the sand is taken. … To understand what he [Phædrus] was trying to do it’s necessary to see that part of the landscape, inseparable from it, which must be understood, is a figure in the middle of it, sorting sand into piles. To see the landscape without seeing this figure is not to see the landscape at all. To reject that part of the Buddha that attends to the analysis of motorcycles is to miss the Buddha entirely.“
Ten miles East of Marmarth, ND. The Narrator discusses the dry lifeless processed of science and philosophical analysis.
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(Photo = ...... Summer2006 0349 ...... ZMM Page = 070 WayPt = 077m)