At the end of the strip, I turned left on East Boulevard to I-90. Walking in the city is always slower, and adding to my delay was some major road construction that forced me to dodge road maintenance workers and machinery for the next few miles. Not halfway through the city I was longing for the wilds again.

The only restaurant I encountered, other than the usual fast-food chains, was a Vietnamese restaurant, which sounded interesting. Once inside, though, I ended up ordering things that weren’t Vietnamese—sesame chicken and Thai curry shrimp. They both were good. I ate quickly, eager to get back on my way and out of the city.

I stopped at a grocery store to stock up on rations: canned fruit, beef jerky, Clif Bars, bread, Pop-Tarts, a jar of artichoke hearts, and water. A half hour past the grocery store I reached Interstate 90 and headed east.

The interstate was dangerously busy, and most of the way I was forced to walk on the freeway’s uneven, cratered shoulder.

By late afternoon the traffic eased as the landscape turned dull and barren. Acres of trailer parks and the lack of trees rendered the scenery drab. I felt like I was in eastern Wyoming again. That is until I saw my first Wall Drug sign.

Wall Drug is a legend, a true American success story and a case study in the power of advertising. Any adman worth his salt knows about Wall Drug.

The Wall Drug story began in 1931, when Ted Hustead, a young pharmacist working in Canova, South Dakota, made the fateful decision to strike out on his own. With a three-thousand-dollar inheritance from his father, he and his wife, Dorothy, hopped in their Model T and began scouring the state for a store to purchase.

Their search led them to the small, desolate town of Wall, South Dakota—an area of the state Ted’s father-in-law described as “about as Godforsaken as you can get.” The town was not only in the middle of nowhere, but it was poor as well—the residents were mostly the impoverished survivors of the Great Depression. Wall was hardly the kind of place to start a successful business.

In spite of the obvious drawbacks, Ted and Dorothy felt at home in the small town, largely due to the fact that it had a Catholic church where they could go to Mass every day. They prayed about their decision and, feeling divine guidance, decided to buy the struggling drugstore.

As the months, then years, passed, their drugstore floundered, constantly teetering on the brink of failure. In spite of his faith, Ted began to wonder if they’d done the right thing. He finally decided to give the store five more years. “Five good years,” he told his wife, “and if it doesn’t work by then …”