It’s been a fun trip so far. South Dakota was… boring east of the Missouri River. Flat, dull and boring. West of the Missouri, the hills are rolling, the Wall Drug billboards pick up a bit more and eventually, you stumble upon the Badlands. Ahhh… the Badlands, I have to admit that I’ve fallen in love with them. They’re remarkably pretty even when they’re imposing. I’ll be stopping again on my way back at the end of the summer.

The Minuteman Missile National Monument was not really all that impressive. We couldn’t get tickets to go into the Launch Control Center (I’m still annoyed that there are so few tours available). The silo there wasn’t all that impressive. It’s welded open with a big glass structure over it so you can look down into it. If it’s sunny, forget it, the glare is so bad you can hardly see that there’s anything inside. I will admit that the park rangers there are very knowledgeable and have gone out of their way to research the program’s history.

Really, the better thing to do (which we did) was drive to Ellsworth Air Force Base by Rapid City and go on the tour offered by the South Dakota Air and Space Museum, which takes you down into a missile silo.

Mount Rushmore was so-so, Jewel Cave was amazingly beautiful, Wind Cave National Park was gorgeous (I didn’t go down into the cave, just the surface park), and Needles Highway is one of the most scenic pieces of road I’ve driven on.

P.S. Wall Drug is the biggest tourist trap ever.