Hail to the chiefs: Some Indian imagery seen along the way

Wall Drug, Wall, South Dakota

The Red Feather Lodge, Tusayan, Arizona, one mile from the Grand Canyon

The Wigwam Motel, Rialto, California

The Shawmut Diner, New Bedford, Massachusetts

I shot this back in 2002 in Colorado Springs. Not sure if it's still there.

Indian Motorcycles were manufactured in Springfield, Massachusetts. The Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History has a great permanent exhibit about them...

...including this awesome photo of the great Jane Russell taking one out for a spin.

Little Big Horn, North Dakota

Tuba City, Arizona

Haight Ashbury, San Francisco, California

The kitsch-o-tastic Fort Cody Trading Post in North Platte, Nebraska has some great "exhibits", including this diorama of the old Sioux Trading Post...

...this brave playing checkers...

...and a fabulous Muffler Man Indian out back.

This fellow is known as the Big F Indian and he stands in front of the Conundrum Wine Bistro in Freeport, Maine.

This fellow beckons all to the Toh-Atin Gallery of Durango, Colorado's parking lot

A fine item from the Ohio Turnpike Rest Area gift shop

Outside the truly wonderful Plains Hotel, Cheyenne, Wyoming

The Big Chief Drive-In, Glencoe, Alabama

Whether or not you agree it's cool to objectify a race of great people, you see a lot of it while traveling across the USA. Native Americans, in particular. So here, without reservation, we bring you a few sights that may or may not 'wam the cockles of your heart. More pow wow to you, and how.

The lighter side of Little Big Horn and other Montana delights

You wouldn't think there'd be anything funny at Little Big Horn, but check out these names on the memorial wall... Plenty Lice? Chased By owls?

Little Big Horn is in southern Montana and it's location of the famous Indian battle. I always liked hearing about this battle as a kid because the Indians won for a change, and Custer, that pompous twit, got his just desserts. Unfortunately, this would be the last hurrah for the native peoples and the American west. Coming in from the west, the landscape is rolling hills and scraggly prairie. Wide, wide spaces with nothing on them except the occasional abandoned shack and grazing horses and cows. The sky really is big here in this state, just like they say. It's a roadside attraction in and of itself. People really say "howdy" here, too. I love that, when cliches earnestly come true before your eyes. One odd thing about Montana is the number of billboards addressing the meth abuse problem. I didn't even know they had a meth abuse problem, but apparently its so big they have to put up grotesquely graphic billboards (I should have a shot a picture of one, but never did). We passed a "facility" on the highway (a brand new concrete cinder block prison, actually) with a spray painted sign outside calling it the "Meth Motel". Gallows humor for sure. "Club Meth" would have been a little more clever, but I'm not going to quibble with the locals. We get to Little Big Horn and its a somber field with nondescript rolling hills, not the big canyons they had in the movies. Lots of markers where battling union soldiers and Indians met their untimely demise. One thing I wasn't expecting, though, was some unintentional levity in the form of some of the Indian names memorialized in stone: "Guts", "Chased By Owls" and my personal favorite "Plenty Lice". This really isn't the place for humor but I can't help it... funny is funny.