Missiles and Pinnacles

10/01/2023 – 10/08/2023

This week we are headed to our “home state” of South Dakota. We are going to spend a couple of days in Custer at an RV park so we can get the rig cleaned up and laundry done. Then we will be boondocking again, this time at “The Wall” in the Badlands.

Custer

I reserved a site for two nights at Fort Welikit RV Park. This was a nice RV park that truly felt like a campground nestled in the trees just outside Custer. It did, however, take me the entire two days to realize the name was pronounced Fort “We-Like-It”. LOL I was trying to pronounce it “Wel-i-kit”. As much as I like boondocking, there is something to be said about having unlimited electricity and water.

The Black Hills

The Black Hills is an isolated mountain range that rise from the Great Plains and are considered a holy site by Native Americans. They are called the Black Hills because the mountains are covered in evergreen trees and appear black from a distance.

The Black Hills, specifically, Spearfish was one of our first stops when we began our full-time RV journey 2 years ago. We fell in love with the area and enjoy returning whenever we can. If you would like more deets on the Black Hills area and all there is to do here, read the blog entry from October of 2021 here.

Scenic Drives

Custer State Park protects 71,000 acres of forests filled with wildlife in the Black Hills of South Dakota and is one of our favorite state parks. With the chores complete, Bill and I head out to drive the three scenic roads in the park and possibly go up to Spearfish. We have all day to meander through the Black Hills before we meet my cousin for dinner.

Needles Highway

The Needles Highway is a 14-mile drive through ponderosa pines, birch and aspens up into the granite mountains that have needle formations protruding into the sky. Towards the end, the road travels through the Needles Eye Tunnel. At 8’9” wide and 9’8” high, navigation in a truck is a little tricky. 😉 On the other side of the tunnel is “the needle”.

Spearfish Canyon

From the Needles Highway we decided to drive up to Spearfish and drive through the Spearfish Canyon, which is about an hour away. This was a scenic drive we found when we visited two years ago and we wanted to see what it looked like with the fall colors. It was a little past peak foliage, but the scenery was still amazing. We even saw a couple of mountain goats.

Wildlife Loop Road

Having to book it back down to Custer so we can take in the Wildlife Loop before it gets too late, we hop on I-90. 45 minutes later we are searching for critters (one of our favorite pastimes). This loop is 18-miles long and winds through the open prairie hills. Custer is home to over 1300 free roaming bison, which are almost always visible along with the prairie dogs and burros. You may also see elk and deer and if you are really lucky, big horn sheep and coyotes. Today we saw the bison, some pronghorn, prairie dogs and burros.

Every year during the last weekend in September, Custer State Park hosts the Annual Buffalo Roundup. The roundup takes place on Friday morning as the cowboys drive the herd to the Bison Center and Corrals. Once the bison are corralled the testing, branding and sorting begins. They continue working into October and then auction some of the bison off. This is on our “Things to See” list now and we got a few tips from some ladies at the RV Park; #1 being, GET THERE EARLY. Parking opens at 6:15AM but you need to be in line to park by 3-4AM. Crikey!

We pulled into the Bison Center and were able to view the bison herd. Wow!

Iron Mountain Road

We have a dinner date with my cousin and his wife at 6PM and are going to squeeze this last drive in. The Iron Mountain Road is 17-miles long and takes about 45 minutes to drive. There are several “pigtail bridges” and tunnels that offer glimpses of Mount Rushmore.

Powder House Lodge

About 2 weeks ago I found out I had a cousin who was travelling in this area too. We had just arrived in the Tetons as he and his wife were leaving. Hmmm, maybe next time. Then we found out we were both going to be in the Black Hills at the same time, so we met for dinner at the Powder House Lodge.

Our dinner was delicious, reasonably priced and we had a WONDERFUL time talking and catching up. We visited for over 3 hours! The restaurant kept bringing us water and told us to take our time. We are looking forward to seeing them again when we get to Florida this winter.

Boondocking in The Badlands

A short ride from Custer and not too far from Rapid City is Wall, SD. If you drive anywhere within a 200-mile radius of Wall, I am sure you have seen billboards for Wall Drug Store. Not only is Wall a small town with a huge tourist draw, it is also 8-miles from the Pinnacles Entrance to Badlands National Park and 7 ½-miles from our home for the next 5 days.

Whenever we boondock, we will park the rig, disconnect our toad and scout the area. I read mixed reviews about boondocking on “The Wall” in the National Grasslands and we wanted to check it out before we took Theo down there. Per other RVers instructions, we drove to the southernmost entrance and then drove about 1-mile on a gravel road and found the most perfect spot overlooking the badlands.

We quickly drove back to Wall, got the rig and quickly returned to our perfect spot before someone else found it. One challenge we often find when boondocking is leveling the rig. Sometimes it’s pretty easy, sometimes it’s not. In this case, it was a little bit of a challenge, but we soon found the sweet spot. The coach is level, the slides are out and now we can sit back and enjoy the views from our new homesite. Pretty phenomenal, don’t you think?

We were treated to beautiful sunrises and sunsets. One night we watched a thunder and lightning storm move across the badlands towards us. We watched mountain goats, pronghorns and bison munch on grass in the grasslands across the road from us. There were also a couple of days where we had 30-40mph winds! Good times!!

Badlands National Park

The Lakota called this place “mako sica”. Early French trappers called it “les mauvaises terres a traverser”.  Both translate to “Bad Lands”. The Badlands may seem inhospitable but they have been a home to the Lakota, followed by fur trappers, miners and cattle farmers. The prairies stretch for miles and miles and then drop into these valleys of bad lands. How did these bad lands get here? That’s what I want to know.

Two simple processes formed the Badlands, deposition and erosion. Nearly 75 million years ago a shallow sea covered this region. It stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada. Over time, rocks and sediment were stacked on top of each other. Then erosion began and the rocks gradually started wearing away. This erosion exposed fossils of life that once inhabited the area, one of those creatures being a relative of the alligator. Can you believe that? Alligators once lived in South Dakota!

Scenic Drives

The best way to see the park is by car on one of the several scenic drives. Since we are just ½-mile from the Pinnacles Entrance, we are able to easily access the Badlands Loop Road and the Sage Creek Rim Road.

Badlands Loop Road

The Badlands Loop Road is 27-miles long from the Pinnacles Entrance to the Northeast Entrance. The great thing about this park is that it runs parallel to I-90 and it can easily be seen in a couple of hours. So if you are travelling on I-90 hop off on SD-240 and take a drive through the park then pick up the freeway on the other side.

The drive starts on the prairie tops then descends into the canyons and valleys of the pinnacles. There are several overlooks along the way with informational signs.

As we left the park and headed home, we came across a prairie dog “farm”? Come feed the prairie dogs, it said. Gotta pull in and see what this is all about, right? As it turns out, the store was closed and the prairie dog food bin was empty. However, the prairie dogs were running around in the field. We took a walk out in the field and the prairie dogs came over to us looking for their peanuts. These were the fattest little prairie dogs I’ve ever seen! They were so cute and curious; I was sorry I didn’t have anything to give them, but they weren’t starving. LOL

Sage Creek Rim Road

If you want to see wildlife, Sage Creek Rim Road is your ticket. One evening we drove 10-miles of this scenic drive and spotted several critters: a herd of bison, pronghorn and prairie dogs. I think we even saw a hawk swoop down over the prairie hunting for dinner. It happened so fast; I can’t be sure.

The Badlands is an interesting area but there is not much to do in the park other than drive around. They have one actual hiking trail, a visitor center with a small museum and a fossil preparation lab. The fossil lab would have been interesting to see but it was closed for the season.

Minuteman Missile National Historic Site

When I was scoping out the area where we would be boondocking on Google Maps, I noticed The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site was close by. What was this? It turned out to be the most interesting part of our stay in the Badlands of South Dakota.

During the Cold War, a massive number of nuclear missiles were placed across the Great Plains. During that time 1,000 missiles were kept on constant alert. In South Dakota alone, there were 15 Launch Control Facilities that controlled 150 missile silos. These silos held the Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles and they were hidden in plain sight! I kid you not!

The Minuteman Missile Historic Site is made up of the Visitor Center, the Delta-01 Launch Facility and the Delta-09 Silo. We visited all three.

Visitor Center

Our first stop was the Visitor Center. Here we watched a very informative 30-minute film on the Cold War and then walked through the small museum. I am sure I learned about the Cold War in school, but I do not remember all the details and I certainly did not realize it stretched out as long as it did. During this time, humanity’s survival hung in the balance. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was key in keeping the peace between the US and the Soviet Union. Thank goodness!

As we made our way through the museum, we viewed commercials that were broadcast during the 50’s instructing citizens what to do in the event of an attack. Duck and Cover was one of those campaigns. I am not sure that would really work…

And in case you are wondering how your city would fare from a direct hit of a 1MT bomb, here are maps of Orlando and Portland. The colors indicate the severity of damage. Red being total destruction out to Blue with light damage.

Close Calls

There were several “close calls” and “false alerts” during the Cold War. The closest coming on September 26, 1983, when tensions were extremely high between the Soviet Union and the US. A Soviet Lieutenant Colonel received an alarm indicating a US nuclear attack was underway. He thought or reasoning was, the US would never launch just five ICBMs and therefore ignored the alarm.

He was correct. The “missiles” were actually sunlight being reflected from high altitude clouds, which triggered the satellite detection system. Lt. Col. Petrov saved the world that day when he chose not to report this alarm to the Soviet Leaders. Lt. Col. Petrov lost his job in the Soviet military. He’s lucky he did not lose his life. He was, however, honored at a United Nations meeting in 2006 and visited the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site in 2007. Thank you, Mr. Petrov for using logic and common sense, even though all indications pointed to five nuclear missiles headed your way.

Today, of course, we still have hundreds of active and manned Launch Facilities and silos across the Great Plains. From the White House to the missile fields, no one person can authorize, arm or launch a nuclear weapon. While there is a detailed protocol that must be followed before a missile is launched, the last persons on that list are the two service personnel in the Launch Control Facility. They are the ones that turn the key. That is a serious responsibility. Would you be able to turn the key and change civilization as we know it?

Delta-01

From the Visitor Center we travelled 3 ½-miles down I-90 to the Delta-01 Launch Facility. Remember how I said the Launch Control Facilities and silos were hidden in plain sight? The Delta-01 is one mile off the freeway. Think about that… one mile from the road, 30’ underground, was a manned launch facility that controlled 15 Minuteman Missile silos in a 150-mile radius!

Above the launch facility sits a small building that housed the staff of eight that supported the missileers stationed in the launch facility. From the road it looked like a normal building, surrounded by fence and barbed wire and a few antennas. LOL

Guided tours of the launch facility are offered daily; however, advanced reservations are needed. Only 6 people are allowed to per tour and they fill up quickly. During the summer it is recommended that you reserve 90-days out. It was about 30 days before our visit that I tried to get tickets and was unable to secure any.  We had to settle for the cell-phone guided tour. When we got back to the coach, we watched a video tour provided by the NPS website. You can watch that here.

Delta-09

Now it is time to visit the Missile Silo, which is just 10 ½ miles west on I-90 and 8/10 of a mile off the freeway. 8/10 of a mile from the freeway is a missile silo that once housed a NUCLEAR MISSILE! Bill and I always joke as we are riding around on the backroads of the country, especially out west, that there are probably missiles in those mountains way over there or under what looks like a manmade lake. You know like the James Bond movies, where the water drains and reveals the world ending warheads. Nope, they are all over the Great Plains in plain sight. (If you know what you are looking for 😉)

At the end of the Cold War, all the missile silos in South Dakota were decommissioned and destroyed per the START treaty. Provisions of the treaty allowed Delta-09 to be converted to a static display. Russian inspectors visited D-09 in the spring of 2002 to ensure this was done in a manner that prevented it from ever being used as a launcher again.

As we made our way from the parking lot out to the site, we continued to listen to the cell-phone tour. Once we got to the silo, we saw the NPS was doing a site survey of the silo. The hatch was open and we were able to take a peek at the area the maintenance personnel used to access the missile. Pretty cool.

The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site was super cool! If you are out in this part of the country, you must stop to take in this piece of history.

Wall Drug Store

You cannot drive through South Dakota on I-90 and not stop at Wall Drug Store. It is the epitome of a “tourist trap” and draws over two million visitors a year. The drug store began in 1931 during the Great Depression and rose to success by offering tired travelers free ice water. Today, they still offer free ice water along with a place to stretch your legs, shop, buy souvenirs, grab a bite to eat, enjoy an ice cream or enjoy the corny photo ops in the back yard. And yes, there is a real drug store tucked into this massive 50,000 square foot space. LOL

We passed on the ice water, donuts and ice cream but took advantage of the photo ops in the backyard. And we escaped with just a couple of postcards and a souvenir pin for our pin board.

Dignity of Earth and Sky

It is time to continue our journey east along I-90. I belong to a Facebook Group called “RV Quilters”. It is a way to share RV adventures and quilting projects with like minded people. One of the “big” things to see for us quilters is the Dignity statue along I-90 outside Chamberlain SD.

The stainless-steel sculpture stands 50’ tall. She is wrapped in a star quilt and represents the courage, perseverance and wisdom of the Lakota and Dakota culture. She is stunning.

The Corn Palace

We overnighted at a Harvest Host outside Chamberlain as we continued to head east. The next morning as we were fueling up in Mitchell, we saw signs to the Corn Palace. I vaguely remember visiting here on that trip my grandparents took me on (clearing throat) 40 years ago. Bill asked if we should check it out. Of course. You know why? Because we can!

The Corn Palace was an idea conceived in 1892. It was to be a place where city folk and rural neighbors could gather to enjoy a fall festival that celebrates the end of the crop-growing season and harvest. The palace was decorated with locally grown materials such as corn, sorghum and grasses. The annual Corn Palace Festival is still held today, in late August. Each year a different theme is chosen and a mural is designed to reflect that theme. The palace is decorated using that theme. (Except for 2023. There was no corn and they reused the 2022 theme)

Today the Corn Palace not only hosts the annual festival, it is also used for dances, concerts, banquets, proms and graduations. It is also home for the Mitchell High School basketball team.

We took a short stroll though the palace where we walked along the historical timeline and saw displays of all the past murals. The town of Mitchell and the Corn Palace have a great vibe, it seemed like the perfect small-town community.

What’s Next?

We continue to head east and make a turn to the south. The next state to be checked off the map is Iowa!