Woke up early and ate our now-standard hotel breakfast. The group of French (or more likely Quebecois) motorcycle riders, no doubt up here early for Sturgis (we’ve seen a TON of cycles), had checked out and the traffic in the breakfast room was much better for it. Hit the road to Badlands National Park a good hour and a half to the east. The weather had noticeably improved with some little popcorn clouds to break up the blue expanse. Other than some construction on US 44 towards the town of Interior (population 67!) the drive was mostly pleasant. Heck, even the kids were getting along.
Around the town of Scenic onwards past Interior the scenery changed from rolling prairie and farms to amazing jagged spires and cliffs — the southern expanse of Badlands NP’s North Unit and the northern expanse of the much-less-visited South Unit.
Badlands near Interior, South Dakota
After paying the $15 vehicle fee to enter we proceeded to the visitor center, which contained some interesting exhibits about the formation of the Badlands (about 500,000 years ago) as well as the creatures that inhabited the region. A Junior Ranger was very helpful and pointed out some trails worth exploring.
We then walked to the adjacent Cedar Pass Lodge to eat. It was built in the 1920s which explains why I could’ve sworn I saw some flappers still waiting on their food! Really, while the food was OK the wait time was horrible — as we’re sitting there I’m imagining all of the cool stuff we could be seeing… Regardless, Michelle didn’t play it safe and had an Indian Taco complete with buffalo meat. She liked it.
Afterward we drove north from the visitor center and walked both the Cedar Pass trail and the Door trail. While the Cedar Pass trail, complete with “Beware of Rattlesnake” signs, was enjoyable and afforded views of the valley below the Door trail was stunning. It started out simply enough as a elevated walkway over some prairie grass but after passing through two spires it opened up to the most amazing area of gulches, spires, and what-not. Addison and I explored quite a bit but unlike some of the more… dumb?… travelers we didn’t walk into the shady gulches and stick our hands into dark crevasses. I really didn’t want a rattlesnake bite.
Door Trail, Badlands National Park, South Dakota
We decided to quickly check on our other intended destination of the day, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, to make sure we didn’t miss seeing that as it was nearing 4 o’clock. It is a good thing we did — the missile silo was only open until 4:30 and was fifteen miles down I-90. The Rangers there encouraged Addison to become a Junior Ranger and he took the paperwork with him to complete on the way.
We arrived at the silo and while there wasn’t much to see it was neat to see how the cover to the silo was on rails and would retract when needed. The cover itself was in this case glass (I’m sure just for this site, surely it isn’t glass on “real” silos) allowing us to see the (disarmed) Minuteman II inside. Neat stuff. Surprisingly the silo itself was within sight of the interstate and didn’t even try and disguise itself.
Minuteman II missile in silo, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, South Dakota
While the silo location was not Top Secret what was was the destination of individual missiles and the like. Four people had to complete a process to launch the missile. There were hundreds of Minuteman II missiles scattered throughout the Great Plains because Soviet submarine-based missiles would have difficulty taking them out and also it was a convenient place to launch missiles that would go over the north pole and strike the central Soviet Union. Even today there are hundreds of missiles throughout the area.
After visiting the silo we rushed back to the Ranger headquarters 15 miles to the east, arriving right after 4:30. Despite the doors being locked the Ranger took pity on us and let Addison turn in his Junior Ranger workbook and become an official Junior Ranger of Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, complete with certificate and a nice patch with a missile on it. Part of the work he had to do was draw a blast bay door (real ones played on Domino’s Pizza’s slogan) and he drew “For service call 1-800-Nukes-R-Awesome” with a missile with “Awesome” written on the side. That’s mah boy!
Returned back to Badlands National Park and took the park loop road through the park, stopping at many viewpoints along the way. Something interesting about the spires was the different colored strata — sometimes gray, sometimes white (volcanic ash from volcanoes to the west), sometimes red or pink. Also the layers were almost perfectly horizontal, exhibiting none of the lift that we saw in the layers in the Black Hills. The Badlands are disappearing over time, eroding with each raindrop into the nearby White River. The geological feature serves as a wall between the lower prairie and the higher prairie to the north.
Though we failed to see any mountain goats / bighorn sheep we did manage to see a few rabbits and some prairie dogs as well as enjoy the sounds of the prairie — the ever present chirping of crickets and grasshoppers and the occasional bird song.
As dusk neared we headed back to Hill City, South Dakota via I-90 and 16, stopping by the Alpine Inn to eat. This place had been recommended to us by the kind woman that was manning (womanning?) the visitor center at Carhenge in Nebraska a couple of days back. She was spot on! While they server German cuisine for lunch they serve only two things for dinner: filet mignon and hotdogs (for the kids). That’s it. So, how much would you figure a lettuce wedge with ranch dressing (again, the only choice), a baked potato, some Texas toast, and a 9 oz. filet would set someone back? $10.95. How the hell do they do that?! They do offer 30 desserts, however, and all at less than $4. Amazing. We all had 9 oz. filets and dessert (I had the Cappuccino Ice Cream Pie, which was delicious) , plus two of us had fountain drinks, all for way less than Outback. While it wasn’t the best filet I have ever had it was darn close — and for $10.95 I certainly couldn’t complain.
Full, we headed to the hotel — the others to bed, me to the blog. Tomorrow is our heaviest driving day as we head to Cody, Wyoming via Devils Tower National Monument. Stay tuned!
Route for July 12, 2010