The people in South Dakota like their strange roadside attractions. There seems to be one about every three miles down any road. Anyone who has traveled through this state knows what Wall Drug is. Traveling down Highway 90, the signs begin 100 miles away from the town of Wall.
What started in 1931 as a roadside attraction, a place to get a free cup of ice water, has now become blocks and blocks of souvenirs and cheesy western wear shops. It’s definitely a must-see for anyone passing through.
Scott was like a kid in a candy store today. He loves to have his picture taken with obscure things. Here he found Poker Alice sitting on a bench outside one of the shops.
We wandered outside to the kiddie play area where Scott found this Jackalope.
It took me a while to get Scott out of the kiddie park. The only way to get him to leave was to promise he could see a nuclear missile. But first we stopped at the National Grasslands Visitor Center.
We thought this would be a quick stop to pick up a map. We got the feeling the ranger did not see a lot of people during her work day. She pulled out every kind of map and brochure. By the time she was done, we had completely redrawn our plans for the day. She was very nice and sent me on my way with a Smokey the Bear bookmark, sticker, and even a comic book that tells the real story of Smokey the Bear. Who knew they had comic books about that!
From the Visitor Center we drove a little farther to the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site. Back in the 1960’s, the United States built over 1,000 Minuteman Missile sites in the United States. Very few actually remain.
We made it there right after the morning tour started. The next tour was not for a couple of hours so we decided to skip the inside tour and see what we could from the outside. Apparently, Scott doesn’t think the sign pertains to him.
It’s surreal to be standing there staring down at a 57-foot nuclear missile!
What’s more incomprehensible is that this missile can reach a top speed of 15,000 mph and can arrive at its target over 6,000 miles away in 30 minutes. Hopefully we won’t ever know if it really works.
Back on the road, we found this giant prairie dog statue. It was advertising a place where you could actually feed prairie dogs.
We decided to skip feeding the prairie dogs after seeing this sign:
We continued on to the Badlands National Park.
Traveling with Scott means that you have to be willing to climb out on the end of a rock cliff to pose for a picture. Good thing that Scott has a tripod and a camera with a timer. He pushes the button and runs over to pose. The key is to makes sure the distance is reachable in the ten seconds on the timer, and not come up short or go past the mark. Sometimes it works,
Sometimes it doesn’t.
It sucks when we get back from a trip and realize that we don’t have one picture with both of us in it. We always try to offer to take people’s pictures if we can. It’s good travel karma.
After a long day of sightseeing, it was time for a cold refreshing drink. We found a local eatery in Rapid City that was right up our alley. The food was so-so, but the atmosphere was an A+.
Tomorrow is a travel day. Fortunately it’s not a real long travel day. We’ll be reporting from a new spot tomorrow night. I can’t wait to show you what the people in North Dakota do for fun!
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