Badlands National Park

We drove to the Badlands and camped that night at Cedar Pass in Badlands National Park

The cold is not bothering the girls and they have become adept at winter camping albeit we have lots of blankets, pillows, therma-rest pads and good winter clothing.

In the morning we continued our daily ritual of warming up in the visitor center and collecting our Jr. Ranger Badges. The girls are learning a lot about the geological history of the great plains and the mega fauna that once roamed this part of the world.

We set out to hike a trail…

but the conditions were too icy to make a safe descent

Colleen is up at the too icy narrow spot.

…so down we went and  were content with a very short hike.

Minuteman Missile National Historic Site

We heard about the Minuteman Mmissile National Historic Site at Dinosaur NM from Ranger Tiffany and were interested enough to check it out.

Low Frequency Antennae

Cold War Art

Cold War Art on the Blast Door

We were lucky enough to catch the ranger and he was happy to give us a tour of the command post where the missiles would have been launched from; no missiles at this site but the ranger was ex air force and had actually worked in this command post back in the 1980’s.

Inside the command post 30 feet underground in a capsule suspended upon huge chains and inside 4ft of reinforced concrete. We learned to protocal for launching the missiles and all the redundancies that would have made the launch impossible by one crazed mad man and all the back ups that would have made taking out the command post equally impossible.  The post was decommissioned in 1993 and we were surprised to learn that there are still 150 ICBM’s spread out over Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming.

The girls were very patient and although they could not earn a Jr. Ranger Badge because all that was packed up to be moved to the new visitor center our guide did give them each a squadron patch!

Black Hills South Dakota

After leaving Devil’s Tower we ate dinner at some local small own resstaurant then drove into South Dakota and the parking lot of jewel Cave National Park and spent the night there. I slept under the cap lie the old days while the girls stretched out best they could in the cab, in the morning we decided it would have been better to pitch the tent.   And it was f%^$ing cold, we made a hot breakfast until the park shuttle van came and collected us and took us to the visitors center.

We warmed up and worked on our Jr Ranger badges and took a quick tour of the cave’s big room, opting to take the longer tour at Wind Cave NP in the afternoon.

Jakobi and her patch

We headed into the Black Hills, past the Crazy Horse Mountain carving which doesn’t look any different then it did 22 years ago when I last saw it and up to Mt Rushmore. Our park pass was not accepted so this is the view we got from  a pull out.

…and later on we got this view from what we are now calling the ‘puke loop’ scenic drive.

Jakobi b4 the puking began, the twisty roads thru Custer State park got to her and to her credit she caught her puke in her hands, we let her sit on Colleen’s lap upfront and the pukiness went away.

Wind Cave National Park

We arrived at Wind cave National Park in time for the 3pm cave tour which was awesome.

It was an hour beneath the earth in tight twisty caverns with a cute tour guide who had lots of interesting facts and stories about the cave,

After we collected our 3rd Jr. Ranger Badge in 2 days we headed south in search of Bison and found some just before exiting the park

Now I am listening to Dan Simmon’s Black Hills about a Lakota boy who absorbs Custer’s ghost at the battle of Little Big Horn. It takes place at all the places we are visiting and is a good listen jumping back and forth in time with great details about the battle, Chicago’s White City World’s exposition in 1893 and the carving of Mt. Rushmore.