The town of High Plains is not on any of my maps, and I did not expect or intend to pass through there. My destinations for that day included Toadstool Geological Park and the Hudson-Meng Bison Bonebed, both located near each other in the Oglala National Grassland in the northwest corner of Nebraska.

I am not accustomed to driving over dirt and gravel roads, and I don't know if my rental car (a Ford Taurus) was ideally suited for that kind of driving. The Taurus seemed more like a city and highway type of car, but ultimately I never had any trouble with it.

The weather was bad. It was 110 degrees, the humidity was 5%, and the elevation was nearing 4,000 feet. The A/C in the car worked great, but for most of the drive that day I was worried that the car would overheat.

Even though I was not in it for any longer than it took me to jump out of the car and take an occasional picture, the heat was still getting to me.

There were signs at points along the road indicating that there was a town ahead, but I either ignored them or didn't think anything of them.

The effect of reaching the town of High Plains was made that much more dazzling, then, when not only was I not expecting it but it was just so excellent.

High Plains is a real town, with real citizens (4 of them) and real businesses. I don't mean to sound shocked that there would be a city with a population of 4, but I did not expect it to contain such immaculate buildings, such classy people, and such beautiful souvenirs. The town has a bed and breakfast, a post office, a restaurant, a livery, a saloon, and other places. The buildings were truly artistic. They look like they came right off a Broadway stage or from a professional movie set. And behind one of the stores was an almost Disney-esque tepee with the skull of a dead cow.

And evidently there was a population explosion, because a sign with the population number on it had the number 2 crossed out and replaced with a 4.

I don't know how many visitors travel through this town, but during my visit the place was a mob scene of tourists. Well, "mob scene" is relative. The Badlands Mercantile, a pretty small tchachke store, was crammed with people. It would only take 10 or 12 people to fill the place, and it was so crowded that you could barely even open the front door. A number of people, from the way they were chatting up the owners of the place, seemed to be return visitors to that town.