Sightseeing Day:
- Badlands National Park
- Minutemen Missiles National Park
After being awaken at 7 AM by three mega trains (one right after the other) that rolled through and each train sounded at least 3 whistles, we were wide awake.
We puttered around a bit and then decided to go out for breakfast. It was pouring down rain and, of course, both of our umbrellas were in the car. I donned a plastic-bag bonnet and was prepared to dash, but Dave would have none of it. So, he went out in the pouring rain and retrieved the umbrella for his princess (his words, not mine!). What a guy I married!
After all of that, our breakfast was ho-hum. By the way, the town of Wall got its name because as settlers were traveling they came upon a "wall" of mountains--the Badlands.
Our next stop was at the ranger's station in town to get details of the Badlands and how best to view them and proceed on our trek. The visitor's center at the ranger's station had a nice display of animals in the area and an informative video of the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands--past and present.
While talking to the ranger, we found out that an exchange student from Russia was going to host a presentation at 8 PM regarding the minuteman missiles of the Cold War. Dave and I knew that there was a minuteman missile attraction here in Wall, but we had no intention of visiting the site. We didn't think we had much interest in this topic. But, with the evening presentation, we thought, why not?
In the meantime, the ranger gave us a couple of routes to take over the next few days. So, off we went on our trek for the day.
It is about a 20 mile drive to the beginning of the 35-mile loop drive through the Badlands. I don't think either of us was prepared for what we were about to see. Of course, we had seen some pictures, but as with the Grand Canyon, pictures do not do justice to the vastness or awe of the area. We rounded the first corner and were blown away with the unique beauty. I will share a few pictures with you here in the blog, but they are only a very small representation of the color and splendor of it all. One disappointing situation in viewing the Badlands is that there are fires in Canada and their smoke is invading the valley. So, what appears to be a haze is actually veiled smoke. We hope that by Friday the southern wind that the area is expecting will blow away some of this smoke. But, even with the haze, you cannot believe the beauty of it all.
We stopped for lunch at the Visitor's Center within the park. The service was slow and the food was nothing to write home about, so I won't.
In all, because we constantly stopped to gawk at the views, this 35-mile route took us about 5 hours.
Near the end of the ride, we came upon prairie dog villages. They were so very cute. They chatter and chatter their warnings to each other and scurry about from hole to hole.
Then, we rounded the last curve and quick-eye Dave spotted some mountain goats and their babies. I could see them, too, but then they rounded a final corner. Dave parked the car and jumped out. He was able to walk really close to them and get some great shots.
We can't wait to go back tomorrow for the second part of our trek that the ranger drew out for us. It is a less-traveled dirt road. So, we have great hopes for some new views.
After a brief nap back at the RV, we went to the ranger's station for the minuteman missile presentation. Egor was our guide. He is 20 and is fluent in 4 languages and has only 1 more year to finish school. This is his second summer in Wall, SD. He will do a couple more of these presentations, but they are only done on occasion. So, we feel lucky to have been included. The presentation was interesting from his perspective as a Russian. Of course, he is too young to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis (Bay of Pigs), but his grandfather was in Cuba on a Russian ship at the time. After listening to the presentation, I must admit I was surprised how close we came to the end of the world.
At the end of the presentation, all who attended drove their own cars the 2 miles out to the missile site to see the lighting of the monument. The monument is an actual missile (disarmed--so they say). We received another talk about how the missile was loaded into the silo and what protections and safeguards were in place to protect it. (That's Dave talking to a ranger overlooking the silo that was lit for our presentation. I took the picture of the missile looking down through the glass cover over the silo.) There were many of these sites throughout South Dakota and Wyoming. At the end of the Cold War, when Russia's government collapsed, a treaty was signed to disarm all of those missiles in the USA and Russia. As some consolation, you may be glad to know that the USA has several missiles that are still armed, which are 1,000 times more powerful than the minuteman missiles! So, there ya go.
It was over at 9:15 and we headed out for a bite to eat at a local restaurant. All I can say is that some really good chef needs to visit Wall and provide some lessons. We tried to find some ice cream afterwards, but everything was closed up tight. Back to the RV for a cool snuggle night.
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