Cold War, Badlands, Wall Drug

We started at the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, the federal preserve dedicated to the launch facilities of the Cold War's intercontinental ballistic missile program. The visitor center is free and modest from the outside; the content is anything but. We didn't get to look down into one of the silos — those visits are limited and require advance reservations — but we spent a long time with a ranger who'd actually served in this exact program.

He told us, matter-of-factly, that he'd been stationed as part of a two-man team in a launch control center buried below ground, ready to launch within thirty seconds of receiving an order. Two officers, two keys, a coded message, and a half-minute window to end an unimaginable number of human lives. He didn't dramatize it. He didn't have to.

The kids listened. We all listened. It was the kind of stop that is fascinating, educational, and quietly terrifying at the same time — and the kind of conversation you can really only have when the person in front of you actually lived it. We picked up our first National Parks passport stamp of the day on the way out.

Edrik wanted to see the silo itself — the Delta-09 site a few miles down the road. The visit would have meant backtracking, and the silo closes at 3 PM, and doing it would have meant rushing the Badlands afterward. We made the call to do the park properly. Edrik was disappointed for a beat. By the time we'd worked our way through the Badlands, he'd let it go.

From there we headed south to Badlands National Park. I'd been here as a kid, so I mostly knew what to expect, but the kids hadn't seen anything like it. It's a place that looks like a sandcastle abandoned by a giant — striated, eroded, alien — and what surprised me, looking again with adult eyes, was how solid the formations actually are. From a distance they look sandy. Up close, you realize you're touching hard rock.

It was close to ninety degrees and the air was dry. We did a short walk at an early stop, where the kids spotted cactus and got pleasantly thrilled by the “Watch out for rattlesnakes” signs. We talked about Mars. We tried to picture what it would feel like to walk this terrain in a spacesuit. After the visitor center — where we picked up our second National Parks stamp of the day — we mostly stayed in the car for the Loop Road overlooks, with maybe one more pull-off on the way out toward Wall.

Wall Drug was next, and we'd been hoping to find lunch there. I'd been here as a kid too — back when it was a quieter place, mostly known for the free ice water and the billboards that announce themselves for hundreds of miles in every direction. As an adult I was happy to see it again, mostly out of nostalgia, but the appeal of working through the dozens of themed shops was lower than it had been at age nine. None of the food was gluten-free, so the lunch we'd come for wasn't going to happen. We walked, looked, took the obligatory photos, and headed back west still hungry.

Back in Rapid City we ended the day at Nanna's Cafe, and this was the meal we'd been waiting for. Three nights into the trip, Sierra and Jacqui had been carefully picking at the gluten-free options that did exist and explaining gluten-free to staff who weren't always sure what the question was. Nanna's was different: a Rapid City spot with a real GF kitchen, a real menu, and the kind of staff who already know the answers. Sierra ordered without negotiation. Jacqui ordered without hedging. It was the family-sit-down meal we hadn't quite had since Boulder.

Tomorrow: south to Wind Cave, then west across Wyoming to Cheyenne.