Day 11: South Dakota

It was a late start thanks to the yummy breakfast at the hotel.  I decided to use Rapid City, South Dakota as our base for the next few days instead of changing hotels.  It sure gets old moving to a new hotel each night!  Today was going to be our longest drive for the stay.  We headed out of town towards the Minuteman Missile Site.  I did not have this on our list of must do but saw a brochure and thought why not?  It is a small visitor's center but worth the stop.  I learned a little about the missile sites used during the Cold War, and Colin earned a Junior Ranger badge too.  I thought this map was a good visual for the missile launch path (if needed) and also amazing that once a missile was launched it could reach Moscow in 30 minutes. 

While we waited for a Ranger talk at the missile silo, we headed over to Badlands National Park.

It was beautiful!  I sure was missing the cooler weather from Yellowstone too.  We made many stops to enjoy the views, and I actually walked to the edge . . .

 

Trust me I did not stay long!  As we exited the park we saw this herd . . .

We were running late but made it back to the missile silo D9 for the Ranger talk.  I thought we would have missed it, but he was still talking which was good for us.

A close up of the actual missile . . .

. . . he was very informative and glad we made the effort to go back to the site.  Just down the road was Wall Drug . . .

. . . I told Colin we would stop for a snack.  Honestly, I had no idea what this place was all about but had been seeing signs for hundreds of miles so figured why not check it out?  It was a huge store with all sorts of stuff . . . total tourist stop but that is exactly what we are.  It was getting late but we arrived back to Rapid City just in time to stop at the  South Dakota Space and Air Museum.  Colin loved walking around looking at all the planes . . .

. . . great displays inside and outside and well worth the free admission.  I was impressed he knew the names of many of the aircraft.  Of course it was back to the hotel for our nightly swim!