South Dakota & Wyoming
From Sioux Falls, we drove through a vast expanse of flat fields across South Dakota, to Badlands National Park. After hours of seeing a flat horizon on all sides, the Badlands creeps up on to the view rather unexpectedly. The rock formations are quite other-worldly and stark . They were named Badlands by both the Native Americans and the French fur trappers due to the difficulty of crossing the terrain - jagged dry rock with no water sources. The temperature was 80F/27C in the afternoon and we were almost hot hiking on the rock formations in our t-shirts. We sat and drank outside in the evening and watched a beautiful sunset. All this as contrast to the weather today… (It is 27F/-3C as I write this in the evening.)
We had planned to stay at Badlands National Park for another night and travel to Devils Tower/Bear Lodge on Thursday, but, due to an unseasonal winter storm, the weather forecast predicted 6 to 8 inches of snow on Thursday and we decided to do the drive a day early so that we can stay put in place on Thursday while it snows.
Before leaving however, we visited the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site. This was one of the many silos built during the Cold War across the United States to house launch facilities for intercontinental ballistic missiles, a deterrent to a nuclear first strike by the Soviet Union, with the assumption that even in the event of an initial attack by the Soviet Union, enough of the silos would survive to retaliate and ensure “mutually assured destruction.” Our first film reference of the day, to Dr. Strangelove. They had a good exhibit hammering home how scary the arms race was/is. My favorite part was a folder with reactions of local residents to having this Minuteman Silo in their neighborhood.
We drove west to Wyoming, which, while a bit ominous with the snow clouds in the distance, was absolutely beautiful to drive through, with the landscape changing into forested hills. We reached Devils Tower/Bear Lodge, which also suddenly appears out of nowhere as you are driving. It is a a butte that juts out 867 feet/265 meters from its base, another freak of a geological formation - which makes it an appropriate backdrop for the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
It started to snow in the late afternoon and will continue to do so until Friday morning. We are now set up to stay for 2 nights at a campsite - with enough propane, enough food, and enough warm layers. We forgot about popcorn for watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind apparently, but alas. We’ll post snow photos tomorrow.
