The Clan's 2020 SD (South Dakota / Social Distancing) Vacation - Episode 6: Experiencing the Wild West in the Northern Black Hills

We started Day 6 with a brief trip through the famous small town of Sturgis, a sleepy little town which for one week ever year hosts the upwards of 400K visitors during the famous Sturgis Motorcycle Rally - even this year smack dab in the middle of Covid. In fact, some studies have pointed to the 2020 Sturgis Motorcycle rally as one of the recent super-spreader events, possibly linked to hundreds of thousands of cases around the U.S... By the time we'd arrived in Sturgis, however, it was back to it's normal sleepy self, with nary a soul on the roads.

A throne made of motorcycle parts in Sturgis

We continued our journey to the historic Wild West town of Deadwood, South Dakota. This town was founded in 1876 in the midst of a gold rush in the region, attracting characters like Wild Bill Hickok, who was killed here  in 1876 when he came here in search of fortune. His murder is a centerpiece of the town, which reenacts the events of his unusual story at the actual sites where the purported events occurred!

Several of the characters who spent time here in Deadwood in the Days of '76

Deadwood is also notable for hosting the annual Days of 76 Rodeo, a parade and rodeo event that has taken place for 97 years!

Deadwood transformed from essentially a gold mining town to a sophisticated city in the early 20th century, bringing all kinds of international trade to the region, including Chinese traders, as seen here

The Wagons and Carriages exhibit showed the evolution of wagons, from functional cargo and passenger carriers to luxury horse-drawn vehicles as Deadwood became more cosmopolitan

Some funny masks

The site of the poker game that claimed Wild Bill Hickok's life

Part I of the daily re-enactment!

After our Wild West history lesson, we continued further northwest. By now, we'd explored the southern part of the Black Hills twice, with visits to Custer State Park and Mount Rushmore, and we'd also explored the Badlands to the east twice. This part of South Dakota, I learned, is pretty unique since there are wildly different landscapes in each of the major directions. You had the prairies and granite needles in Custer State Park to the south, and the unique ever changing terrain of the Badlands. To the north, the landscape becomes very lush and green, as we would find out in Spearfish Canyon.

The Black Hills had actually seen its first snows the week before, but when we got there there was nothing but Autumn colors!

Beautiful Autumn canopy framing Spearfish Falls

Some loggers

Roughlock Falls

These mountains evoke images of China's Yellow mountains a bit...

Not to be outdone by the wildlife in the southern Black Hills, this family of mountain goats was grazing in the cliffs by the road!

Stay tuned for our last day in South Dakota, next on Grant's Pad!

The Clan's 2020 SD (South Dakota / Social Distancing) Vacation - Episode 5: Rockets and Rock Climbing

After a somewhat underwhelming day exploring some of the memorials in the Black Hills, we decided to head back eastward to spend a whole day in the Badlands National Park.

On the way out, we spotted a visitors center on the highway exit right across from the entrance to the Badlands. As an aside, highways in South Dakota are fun because the speed limit is over 80 in most places! Really helps to get past the long featureless miles...

Back to the visitors center in question, curious, we pulled into the parking lot and found it to be the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site!

What is this National Historic Site doing out here in the middle of nowhere?

Back in the 1960s, the cold war with the USSR was in full swing, and in particular, the nuclear arms race. The Soviet Union had developed powerful, if not particularly accurate, intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, which were capable of delivering nuclear warheads to targets all over North America.

In response, the United States outfitted the Atlas rockets developed originally for space exploration to carry nuclear warheads, but these systems were found to have too much downtime to be able to provide a sufficient deterrent. So, the smaller, more maintainable Minuteman was developed, which could theoretically respond to a nuclear threat as quickly as a pizza might be delivered:

They had several old propaganda films on display - duck and cover!

After checking out the museum, which was quite fascinating (which was a little too crowded for social distancing), we drove about 15 miles further to the east to visit one of the actual missile silos!

These signs are everywhere in South Dakota - fortunately, we didn't see any snakes on the whole trip...

A training missile

So, why South Dakota, of all places, to arm hundreds of small nuclear ICBMs?

South Dakota was selected, somewhat morbidly, due to its very sparse population. Washington reasoned that as a target, the loss of civilian life would be somewhat minimal. But aside from that, there is another scientific reason - it turns out that of all the locations in the US, the Dakotas are actually physically among the closest to Moscow, the way the bird flies over the North Pole!

After our educational romp through the missile fields, we made our way towards the Badlands once more.

We started at the prairie dog station nearby:

They're so cute!!!! And soft, too!

Rare white prairie dogs!

After playing with the prairie dogs, we finally headed into the park proper.

We saw some great vistas:

And then we went for a legit rock climb at Saddle Pass trail, a 1/2 mile round trip trail that goes straight up the terrain. It was definitely strenuous, requiring hands and knees to maintain balance in several legs, very likely dangerous, but lots of fun and with great views!

Very proud of the kids for making this tough climb!

The view from the top!

That's where we were!

Finally, as the day wound down, we drove through the rest of the Badlands Scenic Route, stopping by to view some wildlife and interesting rock formations:

Pronghorn Antelope

Bighorn Sheep

Yellow Hills

Stay tuned for Episode 6!