‘A thorn in the side of anyone in the business of selfies, ‘Black Elk Depth’ is more an interesting situation than a place. The physical opposite of a hill, the ‘Depth’ is more hole than canyon, winding down to a point at which a single trim human can stand: the opposite of a summit. Here, one can sense the wide open space above them and see the dim light cast upon the stone ceiling of ‘Deep Dakota’ from nearby cities. One can hear, with maddening clarity, the breathing of those travelers walking behind them and those trudging back up toward the rim. Conversations between hikers are frowned upon. The din at the summit becomes maddening over the volume of a whisper. It’s said a man stubbed his toe halfway down ‘The Depth’ once and burst the ear drums of a woman at the bottom. These are just stories, though.’

I have donned closed-toed shoes and have no one with whom to whisper as I begin the four-hour descent into the ‘Black Elk Depth,’ still wary of those flesh-eating mice, though rumor assures me they rarely leave ‘The Dark Prairie.’ There are a few other cars parked at the rim, only one of which sports the peculiar matte-black license plate of ‘Deep Dakota.’ The numbers reflect in my flashlight- only five, all said. The population of ‘Deep Dakota’ is less than half that of both surface states combined, but it’s been stable for decades. People rarely move below the surface. Deep Dakotans rarely leave. 

My descent is slowed by a herd of white goats that have chosen today to chew on the low shrubs that sprout inexplicably, and only occasionally, from the rocky pass into ‘The Depth.’ They aren’t known to be hostile and are, actually, the opposite at times. Feeding a white goat makes the herd friendly and tends to make slow progress slower. I pick my way around them, careful to hug the wall despite the railing that separates me from a very quick descent indeed. They hardly stop what they’re doing to notice my passing. One bleats a goodbye and I wonder if anybody at the summit was harmed. I packed ear plugs, just in case. My hearing is about the only sense that I haven’t blasted into numbness so far. 

Thick quartz veins begin to appear in the stone beside me in the third hour of hiking. My knees are tired already and I have the whole ascent to look forward to as well. It’s said that ‘Deep Dakota’ is rich with gold deposits that the local government refuses to mine. The state always has money for infrastructure, however, and it rarely takes federal aid. 

The walls and floor are entirely quartz by the time I reach the summit. The crystal is slippery underfoot and I grip the railing. A fall from here wouldn’t kill me- not right away. I try to see if I can spot someone at the summit in the periphery of my light but can’t tell. Other lights from travelers above and across cast long shadows and muddle my vision. It would be easy to get turned around, here, despite there being only the one path. My ears pop. 

If there was somebody at the summit before, they’re gone when I reach it. The Guide described the summit as being fit for a trim human, which I am. It didn’t mention that it is also a whole, six feet deep and tight to the shoulders. I lower myself in carefully, afraid of bashing my teeth on the quartz. Once I’m settled, I realize I forgot to put in my ear plugs. 

A goat bleats somewhere a mile above and I black out.

-traveler

‘It’s like the lyrics say, ‘When the sun and moon don’t shine no more/and horizon’s lost its way/down I go to Deep Dakota/down I go to stay.’

As far as I can tell, no song exists with those lyrics but the Guide bases the majority of its several-page entry for ‘Deep Dakota’ on the overall down-note of this imaginary ditty. It spares a few sentences at the end to mention overall cheaper gas prices, looser liquor laws, and the snow-white skins and furs of animals that spend their lives underground (and are, apparently, forbidden to hunt). There is also a note on how to reach ‘Deep Dakota.’ No ritual or secret pass, here, just an exit on the highway, notable for offering no hint as to where it leads or what a traveler might expect pulling off there. 

Given the dark brush with which the Guide paints ‘Deep Dakota’ I’m surprised to see that a few cars merge into the exit with me and that, despite the eerie tone of the lyrics above, other vehicles are in fact returning to the surface in the opposite direction. A semi hauling a tank of milk emerges and sets me at ease. ‘Deep Dakota’ can’t be so alien if they drink milk like the rest of us. 

The exit leads to a long downward spiral, wide enough that I hardly feel my body pulled toward the left of the cab. Fifteen minutes later, I finally spot the place where the road dips into the ground. I slow and turn my headlights on, briefly seeing what appears to be the reflective eyes of a herd of animals. My attention is drawn away by the sudden pull-off of a car behind me. The driver stumbles out to the curb and vomits onto the shoulder. When I look back at the animals, they’re gone. Then, darkness pulls up around the camper like a heavy blanket. 

The border sign for ‘Deep Dakota’ makes the common grammatical mistake of using quotation marks as a sort of emphasis on ‘welcome,’ as in: “Welcome” to Deep Dakota. It reads sarcastic to me and goes hand in hand with the disrepair of the sign and a striking number of white vultures huddled nearby, eating from the corpse of something that does not share their albinism. 

‘Deep Dakota’ has developed identically to its surface neighbors, combining the area of North and South Dakotas to create a massive 51^st shadow state. It’s towns and cities are identically named but with the titular caveat: ‘Deep Fargo.’ A poorly conceived mockery of Mt. Rushmore is said to be constructed just under the real-deal, but I’ve chosen to spend my time descending into ‘Black Elk Depth,’ which is the lowest point in ‘Deep Dakota’ and the height of what passes for nature. 

In order to reach ‘Black Elk Depth,’ I have to drive through the ‘Night Prairie,’ an acreage of waist-high stalagmites that is said to be home to aggressive swarms of white mice. Not a place I plan to stop for any reason, really, because it’s said the mice have learned to chew through the tires of halted cars, forcing potential prey to walk beside the interstate. Upturned oil rigs shift in the dark above me, vying for control of the oil deposits that have been sandwiched between ‘Deep Dakota’ and its surface cousin.’ 

A white dot streaks out onto the road ahead of me and I nearly swerve, remembering, at the last moment, to just strike the thing. The mice use little suicide mice to send vehicles careening into the ‘Dark Prairie.’ Even as I recall this the skeleton of an abandoned car, held aloft on the broken teeth of the ‘Prairie,’ whizzes by in the darkness. I don’t like to kill.

But sometimes I do anyway.

-traveler

There is an emphasis on safety at the ‘Jump Zoo’ that, in some ways, is very reassuring. Displays suggest that the trampolines are regularly maintained and rated at astronomically high weight limits. There are pictures of the owner dropping loaded dumbbells so heavy that the lower terminating curve nearly crushes a golden monkey in its cage below. Which brings me to my next thought. 

There’s not much emphasis on animal welfare.

‘A private collection, and not one of the nice ones, ‘The Jump Zoo’ has designed its habitats to be directly under a series of wide and angled trampolines on which visitors can bounce between exhibits. The advertised thrill, here, is that of seeming to plummet toward a lion’s den or an army of angry chimpanzees, and the animals are, by and large, very angry seeming. ‘The Jump Zoo’ prides itself on not having any of those ‘zombie’ animals, here meaning those creatures that have taken to confinement so poorly that they begin to pace. No, ‘The Jump Zoo’s’ animals are active and that activity is decidedly hostile toward the sky humans that float wildly above them eight hours a day.’

It doesn’t feel good, doing what ‘The Jump Zoo’ says is normal. I try for a while above the polar bear, hoping the adrenaline will offset the overall feelings of regret for having paid for the ticket. The bear takes some half-hearted swipes at my heels but the both of us recognize I’m far out of reach. I try, instead, for a more extreme trampoline experience: a tower surrounded by netting at the center of the park. I emerge at the top to find I’m jumping over the head of a giraffe. It flinches with each bounce. A woman joins me for a while and, in an attempt to catch a selfie, spills her drink onto the trampoline. The soda mats down the giraffe’s fur and the woman asks me if I think they’ll do a free refill. 

There is a small section of the park near the end that invites visitors to lie back under a trampoline. This is to prove that the experience isn’t quite so miserable as it seems- that the trampolines actually provide sunshade and entertainment to the animals. The area below is sexually charged in a way that makes me immediately uncomfortable. ‘The Jump Zoo’ is a wash. A terrible place for people and animals alike. 

-traveler

‘As much a journey as a destination, Alabama’s ‘Water Way’ looks, to the untrained eye, like a scourge of abandoned boats anchored loosely in Lay Lake. The truth is that ‘The Water Way’ is a beloved collection of abandoned boats anchored loosely on Lay, and it provides something like a spiritual center for struggling locals. Legend has it that the boats are wise, in the way of abandoned things, and that crossing them can grant insight not otherwise achievable by the troubled mind alone. More than this, there are a number of known ‘constellations,’ or orders in which one might cross the boats to gain specific blessings or knowledge. Some are well known, and these include the ‘Wibble Wobble’ which is said to grant mental fortitude and ‘Dunk’ which ends with a plunge into the lake itself and is said to shake loose intrusive thoughts and addictions. 

Other paths are carefully guarded, and the gatekeepers tend to lurk near the banks of Lay Lake, insinuating, but not outright revealing, the paths they believe they know. These guides of the ‘Water Way’ have garnered a certain celebrity after a widely-read memoir cited the author’s experience on Lay and how it transformed her life from something sick and petty to something healthy and generous and kind. The guides are not cheap and, despite playful infighting for the sake of show, they are united in protecting the secret paths. Recording a guide on ‘The Water Way,’ by map or by phone, is physically discouraged.

These people are experts in teaching lessons, after all.‘

-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside

‘The Root Garden’ is the first Wayside destination that I’ve visited that attempts the kitschy millennial aesthetic, and I wonder if it doesn’t foreshadow broader changes on the Wayside overall. Those of us who have fallen off the more civilized paths were, nevertheless, still born into the millennial zeitgeist and perhaps we are coming into what will be our fortunes. I started out losing my truck, for instance, and now that I’ve got a camper I’m almost like a homeowner. Maybe I’m hitting my stride.

‘Do you like plants? Do you like the dark? Have you ever wished you could immerse yourself in both simultaneously? If yes, ‘The Root Garden’ may be the place for you. Painstakingly built under an amateur vegetable and flower surface garden, ‘The Root Garden’ exposes those lower parts of the plants we don’t normally see to a dull yellow light that is supposed to be entirely harmless to the plants above. The roots hang from the ceiling of this basement while cottagecore hipsters recite a series of root-facts that are, by all accounts, common knowledge but are seen as contextually important and, worse, poetically significant. 

There is a bit of spiritual zeal to these youngsters, one that reeks of maybe-this-is-a-christian-thing-but-they’re-being-low-key-about-it. The employees are friendly and united in their praise of ‘The Root Garden’ as a project. They speak to each other like doting siblings and wear a uniform suitable for the prairie, but unspoiled by its brutality. As a whole, they are said to have a long-standing beef with ‘The Rot Garden,’ only two hours away by car. Historically, they are not willing to speak about this.’

I arrive in the middle of a weekday- not exactly prime time for site-seeing- and I’m not surprised to find I’m the only visitor. What does surprise me, however, is the sheer number of employees available. A woman greets me at the surface-level entrance and invites me to peruse the short history of ‘The Root Garden’ before committing to a ticket. She follows me the entire time and at a distance that suggests we might be friends- that we may have dated briefly but are still on good terms. I turn several times, thinking she’s about to say something or to hold my hand but every time I do, she seems focused on the history. 

The man at the register smiles and stares just to the left of us. They both jump when something strikes the glass entry door with a massive splat. I look in time to recognize a rotten cabbage sliding down the glass and to see a truckful of crust punks taking off down the highway and generally flipping off the establishment as though it were an avatar of the man which, even despite my general discomfort, I’d have a hard time believing.

“Was that the rot garden?” I ask and the woman shakes her head. 

“I don’t know what you mean.”

There are eight similarly dressed men and women in the actual ‘Root Garden.’ They look like colonial ghosts under the warm Edison lights anchored into the dirt ceiling, and they seem to silently vie for my attention, each an expert on their own segment of the cellar. I learn all the things I already know about roots. Anytime I accidentally brush my head against the plants all eight people react at once, half saying some form of ‘guess they like you’ and the other half politely suggesting I should be more careful. Nobody in the cellar but me is taller than 5’7” I realize. They glide around like ghosts under the plants. 

Finally, when the tour seems to be winding down to an end, I’m brought to the ‘edible’ section of the garden, where the likes of onions and potatoes hang from the ceiling. One of the specter women is carefully washing a dangling carrot and I soon find myself surrounded by the others.

“We have a little tradition,” one of the men says, “Where visitors bite a carrot in the ceiling. It’s the freshest vegetable that can be consumed. Life, still growing. Still anchored in the ground.”

My body reacts negatively in a way I’m only just able to keep from surfacing. I search my mind for excuses to not have to eat this raw, albeit clean, carrot in front of eight strangers.

“Won’t it kill the plant?” I ask. 

“Yes,” the woman says. “But we’ll use whatever you don’t eat. Even the greens above. There’s no waste here.”

The sentence is pointed- at me, maybe, or at ‘The Rot Garden,’ which seems a much more likely target. 

“I, uh… I only eat meat.”

“You eat meat?” The woman frowns. “Exclusively?”

“Yeah,” I say, embarrassed to be associated with a movement I don’t know a lot about. “One of those.”

The woman’s frown twitches back into a smile. She leans in close to one of the men next to her and whispers something, her body indicating a door that hasn’t opened since I’ve been here. I assumed it was a maintenance closet. I lack the imagination to know what it is now.

“Maybe.” The man says, softly. “Can we have a moment to discuss something?”

It takes me a moment to realize he’s talking to me. “Uh, yeah, sure. I’ll go over here to the, uh, fibrous roots.”

“Yes, of course.”

I imagine there is a moment after I leave that the group comes to some decision about myself and the door and, in turning, they see only the puff of dust hanging in the air from my silent but hurried retreat. In reality, I trip on the second step up and make a racket, sliding back down to the dirt floor, and they turn as a unit, having hardly had a moment to say anything to each other, and I acknowledge their acknowledgment only with an embarrassed shrug before scurrying up the stairs and away from ‘The Root Garden’ and all eight of them arrive in time to wave goodbye in the rearview mirror as I drive away. 

Maybe there was never any danger, there, but I’ve learned to limit my curiosity where consumption is at play.

-traveler