Wed, June 10th, 2009
Today was a total washout. Our planned agenda was to visit the Badlands National Park and the Minuteman Missile national Historic site (a nuclear missile launch control facility from the Cold war days). Both were adjacent to each other and after visiting both, we were to drive on to Rapid City for our overnight stay.
We made the 4 hour drive to the Badlands area. The drive itself was through vast plains. It started out cloudy with occasional drizzles, but by the time we reached there, it was a steady rain. To locate the Missile Center proved harder than expected since it is spread out in several different areas and there’s plenty of confusing information out there. After reaching there with so much difficult in the rain, I found out we needed reservations for the tour and were full. That completely burst my bubble since I had been very eager to take AK there since I thought he would enjoy it. After that disappointment and with the dreary weather, we skipped Badlands National Park and headed straight to Rapid City. This was second consecutive day of driving with no sight seeing or other activities. The only diversion was a stop at the much hyped Wall drug. It is just a store with several different sub stores and different cafeterias. They had some entertainment in their back yard (like dinosaurs, sprinklers etc) and had an extensive display of art all around. We spent an hour there and drove towards Rapid City. Closer to Rapid City, the scenery changed drastically. The vast SD prairies changed into the Black Hills and it was quite a transformation. We reached Rapid city around 4.30 pm and checked into our hotel. By now it was still raining and extremely foggy, even at lower elevations.
The kids went to play at the pool. This Hampton Inn was pretty good. The indoor pool had a reasonably big water slide and both PK and AK thoroughly enjoyed themselves. I caught up on laundry and felt pretty good since I was tired of carrying dirty laundry around. One of the things that AK had wanted to see on the trip was Mt Rushmore, but specifically, Mt Rushmore lit in the night. Tonight would be the only opportunity to do that since it happens at 9 pm. We decided to take our chances and started driving there around 8.15, after dinner. But pretty soon it was obvious that the 60 mile round trip drive would be a waste. So we turned back. We drove on Skyline drive and got beautiful views of Rapid City.
Miles driven today: 416
States : SD
