Out West 2022 (More South Dakota)

January 5, 2024 P-TParaD Comments 0 Comment

This is the continuation of our Out West 2022 summer vacation. Catch up on our first post here.

July 8, 2022 – Wind Cave and Mount Rushmore

This is our second time visiting South Dakota as a family and we missed a few activities at Wind Cave and Mount Rushmore last time (check out the last trip here).

Wind Cave National Park

On our last trip, the elevator at Wind Cave Natl Park was broken, so we didn’t get to visit the cave at all. The topside of Wind Cave is quite beautiful all in itself. They have many tchotchkes in the gift shop that say, “Wind Cave. One park, two worlds,” and I agree.

We had reservations for the Fairgrounds Tour at 1040. It’s about a 45 min drive from Game Lodge Campground to Wind Cave assuming you don’t run into either of the herds of bison from Custer State Park or Wind Cave or any folks driving slow through the parks and not using turn-outs. We eased by all the Custer wildlife, but the Wind Cave herd slowed us a bit.

Bison in Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota — A small representation of the Wind Cave bison herd

This tour is quite nice. Pictures won’t do it justice. It was 1.5 hours with a paved path (and 400 steps…not all at once) and some low ceilings that every adult had to navigate. The taller folk like me spent much more time bent over.

Wind Cave is famous for boxwork. The ranger said that 95% of the world’s known boxwork is in Wind Cave. It’s a function of limestone dissolving from above and filling in around another rock and then that rock dissolves leaving these unimaginable formations behind.

This stuff was everywhere. Some very uniform, some very modern art. Another interesting fact from the ranger was that each year more of the cave is discovered. The original explorer found about 2 miles in the late 1800s. Since the government took over the cave about 2 more miles a year are discovered and there are over 150 miles documented now.

After the tour we headed back to camp for lunch and rode out another storm system. It thankfully broke apart and we just got a little rain. We continued to lay low and do some laundry and the kids ran around to save up energy for another thing we didn’t get to our last trip, The Mount Rushmore lighting ceremony.

Mount Rushmore

I was impressed with the new renovations to the plaza and the Visitor Center. Lots of new exhibits that I don’t recall seeing in the other 2 visits focusing on the construction and the individual workers, not just Borglum and the primaries.

The lighting ceremony is a good smack of patriotism. Listening to 500+ strangers from across the country (and world possibly) sing the National Anthem louder than the video and cheer like excited kids when the flag was lowered and when the lights came on the sculpture is a good reminder that we still might have a chance as a country.

Mount Rushmore lit up at night — The monument lit up.

After the ceremony, we headed back to the campground and prepared to leave in the morning.

July 9, 2022 (Minuteman Missile Natl Historic Site)

The team had to wake up early to get to our tour reservation at 1 pm at Minuteman Missile NHS. We actually got out of the dump station by 815, way ahead of schedule and on the way from Custer State Park to the worst kept secret of boondocking and RVing, Nomad View Dispersed Camping in Buffalo Gap Natl Grassland outside of Badlands Natl Park. It is quite a view.

a RV at Nomad View near Badlands National Park — A nice view

We got the rig settled and ate lunch. We loaded up to tour the Delta-01 Launch Control within the Minuteman Missile Natl Hist Site.

Minuteman Missile NHS discusses nuclear war from all platforms (air, sea, and land based), but focuses mainly on the missile fields that dotted the Dakotas and northern Midwest (closest US based locations to the primary Cold War targets). The Delta Minuteman missiles were manned from airmen from Ellsworth Air Force Base in nearby Rapid City. Most of the missile silos and the launch facility are about .5 mile from I-90. It’s nuts that such destruction was just innocently on the side of the road.

The tour began with a brief explanation of what occured on the surface between Delta-01, Ellsworth, and other launch facilities. The exciting part is going down to the “egg”. The secure room 30 feet underground where two Air Force Officers sat watch 10 nuclear payloads from the late 60s until the mid-90s, 24/7 365.

blast door in the Delta-01 launch facility in Minuteman Missile National Historic Site — Some dark humor on the blast door that could only be opened by someone at Ellsworth Air Force Base. It was opened only during shift change, food delivery, and maintenance.

Senior officer's chair in the egg in Minuteman Missile National Historic Site — The control panel at the senior officer’s desk. Each column of lights, bordered by blue, is the status of the 10 missiles. To the right you can see where the key goes in the event of a launch.

The junior officer's desk in the egg — Here’s a look towards the door of the “egg” with my back to the senior officer’s desk. The junior officer had more things to work on including the teletype and the other radios and such on the left. Inside the egg were their work stations, a bed (behind the blue curtain on the right), a toilet (behind the brown curtain on the left), a manual air supply (1 hour of cranking filtered 24 hours of air), and 2 weeks of food in compartments in the floor. The officers would do 24 hour shifts. The shifts could go longer if their relief couldn’t make it to their shift due to snow or other contingencies.

The ranger was quite knowledgeable and she provided many anecdotes from former crew and staff from the missile fields. There is an active effort from the old missileers to volunteer and contribute to the NHS. The tour was really a great experience on top of the great visitor center.

After the tour we drove through Badlands Natl Park. We hit the park pretty hard our last trip and with the limited time we hopped out at a few overlooks and were content with that.

There was a heat advisory with 105+ heat index. The rig was totally heat soaked all day. Our generator can only run one of our ACs, which couldn’t beat the heat. So instead of suffering in the rig for dinner, we decided to go out for dinner in Wall, SD. After dinner the kids begged to get ice cream at Wall Drug…ok twisted my arm.

jackalope at Wall Drug — They begged to wait in line to get this picture. I don’t get it, but it’s going to be in both their wedding albums.

After dinner we got back to the rig and settled in for the evening enjoying the relative quiet of boondocking.

July 10, 2022 – South Dakota to Nebraska

The wind really blew all night, keeping us awake. After our short night of sleep we woke to find that the wind brought in a storm system with it. The wind was still relentless. We scrambled to hitch up and we managed to stay ahead of the rain. We left Nomad View for Ponca State Park near Ponca, NE. The trip was routine with a stop for fuel and lunch.

Ponca State Park is quite nice. It has a large pool and some nice sites along the river. We got there in plenty of time for the kids to swim for a few hours after a long day on the road.

July 11, 2022 – Nebraska to Home

Our last leg from Ponca State Park to home was about 6 hours. Again, routine driving. We pulled into the driveway around 3 pm and unloaded the camper quickly.

Trip Summary

We were out for 17 days of trip. We covered about 2400 miles of driving. The kids earned their 47th and 48th Natl Park Junior Ranger badges. It was a trip for the memory books.