Homeward Bound-Day 6

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Today we visited the Badlands National park and toured the 22 mile loop. The Badlands were formed by volcanic ash hundreds of millions of years ago. Erosion over the past 500 thousand years, caused the formations we see now. One section of the park has brilliant colors of gold and red. The badlands are made up of peaks, valleys, buttes, and wide prairies. We encountered a small herd of bighorn sheep on the slopes, and witnessed two head butting. We also noticed several sheep at the very top of a butte, looking down at us. We took about two hours to do the drive. We noticed birds which were very vocal. But there were very few trees for them to nest. On the way to the Minuteman Missile Site we noticed hundreds of birds with mud nests fixed to the underside of the highway underpass.

The Minuteman Missile Sites are actually in three separate physical locations. At the visitors center which is near exit 131 off I-90 you could make tour reservations for the control center, just off I-90 Exit 127. The actual missile silo is located further west, which we had already passed and decided only to visit the control center. The tour was guided by a park ranger, and took about 45 minutes. As a result of the START Treaty with the U.S.S.R. ". . . the U.S. began to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear arms. All Minuteman II were decommissioned and destroyed except for one which was preserved as a representative site to illustrate the history and significance of the Cold War, the arms race, and the dedication of USAF personnel." The site was established in 1999; the first site dedicated exclusively to Cold War events. The control center is located thirty feet underground, covered with hardened steel and six feet of concrete. And just like in the movies, it requires two separate people and keys to launch a missile from any one of the ten sites controlled by that center. We learned that once a missile was launched, there was no return, it could not be destroyed or diverted to another location. This is the nuclear missile option Kennedy had available during the Cuban Missile Crisis. We are staying in Sioux Falls, SD for the night and heading East tomorrow. For all of our East coast friends, we are bringing the warm weather with us. We decided to do a more direct route home, with less sightseeing on the way. See you soon

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