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Published: October 20th 2007
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Posted by: Onaxthiel: Yesterday was what we refer to as a “driving day” which often means that Obfuscator doesn't like writing them up. Also, I have been piloting the car for the last few days, so between these factors, I get to tell you all what happened on a mostly dull drive across South Dakota. That's alright, I wanted to review some of my medical books today anyhow.
Our wake up was in the unexpectedly crowded camp sight in the badlands about the same time that everyone else in the camp was beginning to stir. The area was filled with an assortment of license plates from around the Midwest and a few outliers like Vermont and Alaska. In the night our bivies had gotten a fairly heavy coating of dew on them. Oh yeah! That's why we started putting the poncho up every night! Luckily, the wind didn't break with the dawn, so we were able to drape our bags over a nearby picnic table and let air currents begin the drying process for us. While the bags dried, we indulged in one of our favorite pastimes, people watching. Old couples cleaning up around their RVs, young couples with
their tents and middle aged couples walking their dogs. I suppose it is late enough in the season now that all the families with kids have them in school. It was a rather ugly morning on the whole, with mists and clouds obscuring the panorama of bluffs and ridges around us. Around 8:30 we packed up and moved on.
The Minuteman Missile national historic site is an interesting tribute to the ICBMs and crewmen that guarded our shores from the threat of godless communism for about 30 years, and the many that still do. Unfortunately the park service only takes tour groups of about ten to the interesting part of the park, the launch control facility. Since this is the off season, they only have one tour per day. So basically, we largely wasted our time by trying to see this site, as they didn't have space on the days group to facilitate our visit. I think the tour would be worth taking if you made a reservation before hand, but it certainly left me somewhat frustrated. Tax payer funding is going to maintain a sight that only allows ten visitors per day in the off season, and
around 40 visitors per day at the (90 day long) height of the tourist season. Considering that they are located at the entrance/exit of the badlands, this felt like a horrible tease on the part of the park service. Were there still live nuclear secrets hidden in the bowels of the control facility that required a guide to keep the tourists under control? To keep them from dually turning their keys and unwittingly destroying the earth? We will never know, because their vault of retired cold war secrets will remain closed to us. We had no need to know at this highly compartmentalized memorial. They did tell us we could visit the second site they managed, 20 miles further down the line, a launch silo with a dummy missile in it. If we would wait for the tour group to get their at 11:30. We passed up this opportunity to wait around two and one half hours to look into a hole at a spiky bit. If we had more information from the outset, we would have just driven into Ellsworth AFB and viewed their exhibit, which I am sure would have been just as thorough.
Our next stop
was in the town of Murdo. Coming from the west, there is no way to miss Murdo, as the signs advertising their pioneer auto museum were spaced about every 2 miles from the badlands onward. They have Elvis' Harley! They have the original Dukes' General Lee! They have a car that looks like a John Deer tractor! They have the enormous model T built for Borglum with modified controls to accommodate his chisel and hammer hands! Perhaps I made that last one up, but the rest are all on display. If you are interested in cars at all, and have the HOURS it would take to fully explore the auto show, it would be worth the visit. Unfortunately, We did not have the kind of time available to justify the nine dollar admission fee. The attached restaurant has short order food and reasonable prices, so we ate our lunch there and moved on.
In Mitchell we found the famed Corn Palace. It wasn't as interesting looking as the older Corn Palaces we saw in the pictures they had up. The old Corn Palaces were more ornate looking, while the new one just basically seems to be a big gymnasium
that they put corn murals on each year. The murals are neat, being formed from the cobs of about twelve different breeds of corn, which all have slightly different colors.
We didn't stop again until the edge of the state. In Sioux Falls we took a detour to see the Battle ship South Dakota memorial. We had seen this once before when I was tiny, and the site has had much construction around it from what I remember. Being at the memorial made me bemoan the loss of the battleship from the American arsenal, but I suppose the modern fleet is a more efficient projection of force. The South Dakota's career in particular is emblematic of the retirement of these dreadnoughts. She was commissioned only a few months prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, moth balled as soon as the war was over, and struck from the rolls in 1947. From state of the art to scrap ready in six years, An ill use for a ship. From here we moved into downtown Sioux Falls to see the statue of David. The city has a full size replica in it's parks. Unfortunately we blew past the unmarked
exit for the park and just saw the statue and park in the distance. Since we still had a few more miles to cover for the day we decided not to turn around. Tight deadlines make road tripping less enjoyable. We had earlier spotted a location on the map called Devils Gulch just off I-90, and since we have determined that everything we think is pretty has a satanic name attached, we took the detour. Some poor map reading and a chance viewing of a state park sign side tracked us. I am just as glad that it did.
Palisades state park is a scenic stop along a river that has cut a route through many a ton of exposed pink quartzite. Thousands (millions?) of years of water flow has rounded nearly every jagged edge in the place, leaving an aesthetically pleasing valley with a few small caves and cliffs. Once upon a time, a tiny town of around a dozen buildings operated on the banks of this serene spot, and the site of the tiny mill still has a few small reminders that they inhabited it only a few generations ago. There is also a 100 year old
bridge that was built right before the dissolution of the town. All in all the stop was one I would recommend to anyone heading towards Sioux falls, even with Lucifer's name unattached.
From here we drove into Minnesota. Our target was a town called Worthington. The towns motels were mostly booked, and we went to one called the sunset inn. I would not recommend this discount spot to those looking for lodging in the area. It was dirty, the laundry facilities were less than functional, and the water was...odd. On the upside, it had a pretty good internet connection and the rate was pretty cheap. I suppose it was adequate as a last stop before refitting at home for a bit.
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