There are signs.

Thousands of them, from massive metropolises to some of the most remote regions of the world. London commuters see them stuck to the back of double-decker buses. As do rail commuters in Kenya, metro riders in Paris and visitors to the Taj Mahal. A post in Bien Hoa, Vietnam, tells passers-by they’re only 10,659 miles away from Wall Drug, a drugstore in a tiny town called, appropriately enough, Wall, in the middle of nowhere — South Dakota.

Wall will be my home for the next three days, and Wall Drug is the lure. If the sheer quantity of signs are any indication, I’ve been set up for either a huge disappointment or an incredible weekend adventure, one that you might want to take too, if you’re looking for an unconventional road trip during fall break.

The 340-mile stretch of interstate between Sioux Falls and Rapid City, South Dakota, is table-top flat. The only notable scenery is farmland stretching into a dreary abyss. A 75-mph speed limit tempts cross-country drivers to test the limits of their vehicles. My 1993 sea-foam green Honda Civic – think of a sun-bleached mid-80s bridesmaid dress – begins to shake violently at around 94, so I slow it down to a steady, but respectable, 90. Southerly winds whip dust from rain-thirsty fields into mountainous swirls that barrel across the highway and cause the back end of semi-trucks to sway in and out of their lanes.

Lurching over the first hill in nearly 30 miles, a hand-painted, aged wooden sign flies by in a blur: “Stop at WALL DRUG!” It’s a pattern that continues every few hundred yards for the next 300 miles. “Have you dug WALL DRUG” … “Free Ice Water in WALL DRUG!” … “T-Rex NEW!” And as the sun slowly descends over the Missouri River Valley in Chamberlain, S.D., anxiety falls over me. This is my final destination, and it had better be as good or better than advertised.

The advertising started in 1931 when Dorothy and Ted Hustead bought the only drugstore in Wall, a town of 326 people wiped out by drought and the Depression. Needing business and noticing the number of travelers passing the store each day on the nearby highway, Dorothy suggested Ted place a sign near the highway offering free ice water. By the time Ted returned, travelers were already lined up for the free refreshments. The first sign worked, and for the next 30 years Ted would post signs on nearly every major highway in the Union, beckoning anyone and everyone to make a stop at the South Dakota drugstore offering free ice water. Most highway signs were removed during Lyndon B. Johnson’s term as president under the Highway Beautification Act, but the signs remained in South Dakota, scattered on roadsides around the country, and elsewhere in the world remained.

Today, the lure of free ice water clearly is not what it used to be. Travelers brave enough to walk past the $1.50 bottles of Evian and settle for what comes out of the tap can get free water anywhere. But still, more than two-million road-weary travelers stop in Wall every year — 20,000 or more on the average summer day. What was once a lowly drugstore desperate for customers is now a multi-million dollar a year business that thrives on the power of cheap advertising and, of course, the sucker in all of us.

Day One Most visitors to Wall Drug end up there after driving a 39-mile loop through the North Unit of Badlands National Park. Here, sharp peaks stretch above deep voids in rocky earth, a sea of mountaintops among an ocean of prairie. The Badlands Loop road sits on seemingly impassible terrain that contorts around banked turns, drivers totally blind to what may lie ahead.

Stopping for a breather midway through the park, a 70-something couple, Ron and Junie from Vermont, ask me to take their picture. Ron is clearly comfortable in boatshoes, cut-off jean shorts, a blue polo, heavy gold shades and, inexplicably, three gold watches. “This is the most exciting thing we’ve seen in days,” says Ron, eying the lonely watch on his left wrist. “We’re headed to Wall Drug next.” Ron’s seeming obsession with time creeps me out, so I give them a quick ‘see ya there’ and make it a point to beat them out of the parking lot.

Safely out of the Badlands, the signs for my icy utopia emerge once again. The water is still free and abundant, but a new sign says coffee is only a nickel. It’s 9 a.m. and the Best Western continental breakfast I ate three hours earlier only provided decaf, so I could use a cup or four. I wonder for a moment if refills are free.

Downtown Wall is only a block long, shorter in length than Strong Hall. Cars with license plates from across the country and beyond — Maine, Florida, New Mexico, California, Alaska and Quebec, to name a few — park along each sidewalk, as well as two rows in the middle of the street. Wall Drug dominates the east side of the street. On the west side there’s an assortment of more souvenir shops pushing Black Hills gold, cowboy gear and close-out T-shirts from the summer’s Sturgis Harley Davidson Rally, a small café and what looks to be the only bar in town.

As I park my car and take a moment to stretch, a magnificent example of social diversity unfolds in front of me: blue-haired octogenarians share the sidewalk with cowboys and roving hippies, distraught-looking parents with their children walk alongside leather-clad Harleyheads. All eyes are big and bright, confused but eerily calm, as if they’ve just been shot out of a cannon only to find the landing a shapeless mound of velvet pillows, all thinking the same thing: “What is this strange but wonderful place I’ve been duped into stopping at?” Strolling down Main Street, Ron spots me from across the street and shoots a wave with his two-watched wrist, so I quickly duck inside the nearest door. The drugstore has four separate entrances, and I stumble into the fourth. To my left, a cowboy orchestra of three animated plastic figures that look like wax replicas of Blazing Saddles’ Slim Pickens left out in the sun play an unrecognizably hokey tune, swaying side to side. The rest of the shop is a mix of strange souvenirs — Davey Crockett Coonskin caps, Chip Chuckers (plastic cow patty replicas), horseshoe coat racks, stuffed jackalopes, an assortment of 30 Wall Drug shot glasses and leather whips at $4.98 each.

The Wall Drug mall to the right is a 100-foot walk-way straight out of a Western movie. About 14 shops line a sky-lit hall where visitors can get pictures taken with fiberglass cowboys, maison-derrière women and a poker playing grandma. I spend a few minutes cramming my wide feet into cowboy boots and moccasins and making futile attempts to convince the lady at the fudge counter to give me free samples. The strength-tester in the back tells me my grip is “about as strong as a wet noodle” and gives me a rating of “Cow Poke,” just between “Sod Buster” and “Bronco Buster.” Irritated, I leave.

Cowboy hats really aren’t my thing and I wouldn’t be caught dead in leather chaps or a bolo tie, but there is a certain intrinsic charm about this town. Workers give genuine smiles to everyone who passes through — not as they’ve been trained to do, but as if they actually enjoy their jobs. Every morning a new set of eager tourists arrives, but there aren’t annoyed locals who feel their precious space is being invaded.

Being in a town with a population of about 800, the mayor of Wall is pretty accessible. He had asked me to meet him at the single-strip municipal airport on the west edge of town at 1 p.m. Mayor Dave Hahn, a 64-year-old, flat-topped man sporting jeans, a yellow denim shirt and gold aviators, forgot about our meeting but “wasn’t doing anything worth canceling anyway.” We take a seat in front of his single-engine airplane and get down to business, sort of. “You should know that my job as Mayor is strictly a part-time job,” he says in a jolly, slow voice. He smacks his lips in between sentences. “I get 60-bucks a meeting, and we only have like two meetings a month.” Hahn has been mayor here for over 20 years, and insists this will be his last term.

We make small talk for a few minutes; he tells me the only serious crime in Wall this year was an incident where four high school kids broke into the local golf course, and he can’t remember there ever being a murder here. But mostly, Hahn is interested in his airport. He built two of the hangars himself and owns all but one of the planes, so his pride is quite understandable. With a firm handshake and a smile, we part, but not before he gives me a souvenir pocketknife with his title printed on it: Dave Hahn — Wall Municipal Airport. No mention of his mayor status, though I’m not the least bit surprised.

The café in Wall Drug is perhaps the standout feature of the entire store. With seating for more than 500 grubbing tourists, this is Western dining at its finest. Fine Tiffany lamps illuminate one of the most expensive Western art collections in the country and life-sized woodcarvings of somber Indian chiefs tower over a hand-carved walnut bar. A baked ham dinner is the special tonight. It’s a one-half-inch thick slice of juicy ham with an ice-cream scoop of bright yellow potato salad and baked beans so thick with molasses I witness a fly struggle valiantly before sinking into the pasty goo.

Because this town is so small, the drugstore can’t fill all positions with local workers, so it employs about 60 college-aged kids from Eastern Europe every summer to work the café. A gorgeous, towering, blue-eyed Czech Republican girl named Petra (pronounced PAY-trah) kindly took my dishes, and after working my usually pathetic boyish charm — the language barrier probably saved me — I was invited to a party (pronounced PARD-tee) later that evening.

After a few Budweisers at the Cactus Café and Bar to loosen up, I stop at the town’s lone liquor-grocery store and pick up a 0.75 liter of the smoothest vodka it has to offer, a $7.29 plastic bottle of Kamkatcha, and make the seven-block walk to the east end of town.

Entering quietly through the backdoor of the two-story house, I try to keep a low profile until I can find Petra, failing miserably. What was just seconds ago 60 jubilant 20-somethings knocking back Pabst, shots of Jagermeister and, thank God, Kamkatcha, is now 120 cold eyes wondering who the hell the new kid is.

Petra spots me and gracefully dashes across the room, making an upbeat announcement of what I can only assume is the reason for my presence. A few of the girls smile, and two guys in the corner shoot me dirty looks, but everyone else pretty much resumes their usual conversations. I bat eyes with my Czech princess for a few minutes – her English is limited and my Czech nonexistent, so analysis of Tolstoy or Dostoevsky is out of the question – before I’m coaxed into taking a few shots with a 6-foot-6 broad shouldered guy named Peter (pronounced PAY-tr). Eyes red, the sharp taste of cheap vodka lingering in the back of my throat, I see Peter is suddenly yelling across the room at another kid, apparently also named Peter. An argument of unrecognizable chatter ensues between the Peters, and a glass falls off a table, shattering on the tile floor. In half an instant, everyone – including Petra – is involved in this little yelling match.

After realizing that any attempt on my part to calm this situation is useless, and that whatever the hell is going on here has nothing to do with me, I inch my way back toward the door I entered only 10 minutes ago, give a quick “thanks anyway” nod to Petra, who has taken a break from the action for a cigarette, and head back to my campsite back on the west edge of town.

It’s past midnight. Cheap, warm vodka mixing with cheap beer has created a boiling mess in my stomach, but a torn sleeping bag atop a thin air mattress never felt so good.

Day Two After a quick rinse in a moldy shower at the campground and a Cactus Café breakfast buffet, I head back to Wall Drug for an 11 a.m. meeting with the store’s third generation owner, Ted Hustead.

He greets me outside his sprawling second-floor office wearing shined leather boots, Wranglers, a short-sleeved blue Oxford and a tie dotted with American flags. Hustead is half-cowboy, half-Wall Street, but all business. He tells me the store spends an average of $120,000 each year on advertising. A full-time “sign artist” paints 18 new signs each year, and 20,000 or more people come through every day during the summer, each helping themselves to a free bumper sticker.

“I have to admit,” I say, “I’ve been here before, and spent the entire day in your store yesterday, but I still can’t figure it all out.” He immediately laughs, as if he’s heard this before.

“We’re a roadside attraction,” Hustead says. “We try our best to create an experience where people will enjoy coming back again. We’ve been in the same promotion game here since 1936. Business, Erik, is a theatre. Wall Drug is our stage.” He’s right. This entire place is a twisted Broadway musical showing continuously 15-hours a day, every day, 365 days a year. Hustead gives me a crushing handshake, tells me to enjoy my trip, and hurries off.

For lunch I eat a buffalo burger at the Badlands Bar and Grill. I feel a bit guilty eating since this is supposed to be buffalo country and I have yet to see a live one anywhere. A stuffed possum with gnashing teeth perches above the bar. I’d like some ranch sauce, but the sign above the cook’s station makes it strikingly clear: “Notice: This is not Burger King. You get it my way or you don’t get it at all.” Ketchup will do just fine.

As I step out the back door to cross the alley into Wall Drug’s backyard, a kid darts past me, screaming with tears streaming down his little face. Maybe he expected to find tire swings and tree forts, only to be confronted with something different. To my immediate left, for a quarter, visitors can watch an 8-foot gorilla slam a piano, a quartet of Cabbage-Patch-looking dolls and stuffed bears rock the banjo while lifeless rabbits spin in circles. There’s a fiberglass jackalope, bison, dinosaur, bear and another gorilla, all with terrifying looks on their simmering faces. A stuffed horse with much of its hair rubbed off is frozen in a bucking position and begs to be sat on. In the middle of all this sits the original well that Ted Hustead pulled water out of nearly 70 years ago. Way in back, a mechanical T-Rex, complete with smoke and warning lights, roars every 12 minutes. At night, this place would look like a perfect setting for a Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas sequel.

Having enough of the backyard, I head to the pharmacy to purchase some postcards and bumper stickers. The lady behind the counter squints at me. “You were here yesterday, weren’t you? Is your car broken down or something? Can’t you leave?” I tell her yes, I was here yesterday, no, thank you, I am not broken down, and, yes, I can leave whenever I want. That’s not good enough for her: “But no one stays in this town for more than a day.” She’s right; I’m the only person here who actually planned a trip around a drugstore in South Dakota.

After dinner at the A Café in the Badlands, I stroll into the Badlands Bar and make friends with the bartender. The place fills up quickly with locals knocking back Buds and singing along to Kid Rock and country tunes. Tina, a 40-year-old blonde woman in a ragged Minnesota Vikings T-shirt, faded jeans and worn jelly shoes takes a seat and buys me a shot of Wild Turkey without asking. Then another. And another. I retire to the bathroom for a much-needed break and return to discover that the bartender has introduced me to all eight people sitting at the bar as Gene. It’s not worth correcting them, and I owe Tina a shot. This friendly reciprocation is a sign to Tina that I’m interested, and she continues with Wild Turkey freebies. She’s trying to get me drunk, and it’s working.

I make another desperate dash to the bathroom when a short, bearded man intercepts me with a few words of warning: “That Tina’s trouble, Gene, you don’t wanna mess with her.” Not an epiphany, but helpful nonetheless. Returning once again, Tina has already lined up two more shots, putting the now hazy count at six. I accept, but draw the line when her hand begins to gently stroke my leg. A quick nod to the bartender, cackling behind his Jack and Coke, and I’m out safely, stumbling home.

Day Three It’s Sunday, and a fresh set of wide-eyed tourists is already filling up Main Street. Eager to leave, I gulp two last cups of nickel coffee and my tires meet the hot highway pavement by 11 a.m.

Just about everyone leaving Wall heads west through the Black Hills National Forest. I-90 meets Sturgis on the north end of the forest. Just to the south is Deadwood, a place where 1800s outlaws sought safe refuge that is now five blocks of casinos and no longer the Wild Western place it once was.

South, the towering pines of the Black Hills recede into rolling grasslands, then prairie land and bounding plateaus molded over millions of lifetimes once again in northern Nebraska. The next nine hours will be a distorted half-dream of single-lane state highways and bumpy interstates. The western sun sets for the last time in my rearview mirror, oranges melt into pinks, slowly dulling until the only light is a blanket of stars glimmering beyond a moonless sky.

Alone but not lonely for over 14 hours and nearly 1,000 miles, my head is void of all coherent thought as the plains of western Kansas transform into the rolling hills of eastern Kansas in the warm night. As I exit I-70 and reach the familiar streets of Lawrence once again, a gaudy green bumper sticker graces the rear of my car, a rolling advertisement shared by millions who came before and millions who will come after, all begging the same question: Have you dug Wall Drug? Wall by the numbers 1,812 Miles traveled 361 Semi trucks blaring horns 11 Red Bulls consumed 4 Animals meeting their fate with a bug-smeared front fender. (2 raccoons at once, 1 rabbit and 1 bird who technically committed suicide) 2 Speeding tickets avoided 1 Headlights broken