The Badlands

 

The door to the bunker

Wednesday 5/23 Day 33
Our last day of touring the Black Hills of western South Dakota. On the agenda today was the Wind Cave, an old minuteman two missile silo, a scenic drive of the Badlands, and then off to Wall to see wall drug and sleep.
Although it seemed mellow there was a lot of information to take in. The wind cave is the worlds 5 th longest cave but so much of it is unexplored. It is thought that the wind cave and the Jewel Cave could be connected but it has yet to be discovered. In this cave anyone can be a explorer, though I don't think in the cave the explorers have gotten to a part were it is as short as the Jewel Cave. This cave was really different than the last one, very dry, almost no moisture. It did have a unique formation in it called boxing. Prehistoric limestone cracks are all that remains of some of the rocks. I may have that backwards, the remaining cracks were calcium deposited in the limestone. There we go. It formed beautiful spiderwebs on the ceiling. After a short travel and some lunch we made it to our next national park area.

The Command Post

The minuteman missile complex was pretty cool, we got to see the control room of the complex. Each control room looked after about ten nuclear missiles during the 60's to early 90's. The control room tour only allowed six people and there were only two spots left so mom opted to sit out. But the control room was designed to keep two men alive long enough to lunch their missiles at Russia if they had to. The capsule was buried underground in a shock proof room which had its own air supply for three days if needed. It was hard to believe men went down there to stare at a computer and waited to fire the missiles and did nothing else. The question was left to us whether we could press the button or not if came down to us. And I say I could not. I don't think I could follow an order like that blindly, without knowing the reasoning first.
We finished our day on the scenic route of the Badlands. For those of you who have been to the Oregon painted hills this area was that times 100. Eroding rock that has its sediments Draining off the mountain. We went for a few little hikes in the area to see the views a little better. This was also one of the areas the birds led their people through before the wounded knee incident. The area was about twenty or so miles long. I'll post some pictures soon and you will understand how beautiful it was. I imagine the sunrise and sunset are to die for.
We had a little Dairy Queen for dinner followed by the finally of American idol. So many things we saw in the past four days. Exciting to ride again tomorrow.