Wall - Cold but no rain. Not much driving planned for the day. Drove over to the actual Badlands area (7 miles away from Wall). The North Dakota Roosevelt Park Badlands are known as the Little Missouri Badlands. The South Dakota area is the official "Badlands" area. Yes, it's much larger than the one up North with more massive colorful sand and rock formations. Drove onto the Sugar Creek trail - unpaved mud road which resulted in crappy mud crust onto the vehicle (praying it rains some time so it can all get washed away). But got some nice pictures. Turned back at the overlook point and drove on the scenic Badlands road (highway 240) from the Pinnacles Visitor Entrance to the Ben Reifel Visitor Entrance. Nice photo op overlooks on the way.
Exited the Badlands National Park and drove on to the Minuteman Missile Visitor's Center. Learned that if we rushed we might make it to Delta-09 missile Silo (which closes at 3pm and is 15 miles away). So mad rush and we make it into the area to see the Silo. While it's non operational, we still are not allowed to enter the actual Silo - only see the missile from above as it is displayed in a glass encased top cover. But still very exciting seeing an actual Minuteman missile. Tens of thousands of them were deployed in the states of North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado and Missouri during the cold war. After the SALT and START nuclear disarmament agreements - these have been reduced to a few thousand - but there are still active missile sites in the five northern states.
Our night halt is in Murdo - we check-in and go to a small diner for dinner. I have the South Dakota specialty - Authentic Indian Taco - which is nothing but what we in California refer to as a Taco Salad with meat. Instead of a hard shell in which the salad is served, this is a soft fried thick tortilla which reminded me of a Bhatura.
Today, on the 18th day of our travels, we enter Central Time...
Day stats: approx 140 miles (including the mud track trip towards Sugar Creek.
Exited the Badlands National Park and drove on to the Minuteman Missile Visitor's Center. Learned that if we rushed we might make it to Delta-09 missile Silo (which closes at 3pm and is 15 miles away). So mad rush and we make it into the area to see the Silo. While it's non operational, we still are not allowed to enter the actual Silo - only see the missile from above as it is displayed in a glass encased top cover. But still very exciting seeing an actual Minuteman missile. Tens of thousands of them were deployed in the states of North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado and Missouri during the cold war. After the SALT and START nuclear disarmament agreements - these have been reduced to a few thousand - but there are still active missile sites in the five northern states.
Our night halt is in Murdo - we check-in and go to a small diner for dinner. I have the South Dakota specialty - Authentic Indian Taco - which is nothing but what we in California refer to as a Taco Salad with meat. Instead of a hard shell in which the salad is served, this is a soft fried thick tortilla which reminded me of a Bhatura.
Today, on the 18th day of our travels, we enter Central Time...
Day stats: approx 140 miles (including the mud track trip towards Sugar Creek.
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| Goats blocked our way for some time in The Badlands |
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| The Badlands |
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| The Badlands |
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| The Badlands |
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| The Badlands |
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| The Badlands |
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| The Badlands |
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| The Badlands |
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| The Badlands |
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| Minuteman Missile site |
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| The Minuteman Missile in the SILO - with a dummy warhead - nuclear one has been removed |
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| The Glass enclosure for the Minuteman Missile |
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