Badlands National Park
We drove to the Badlands and camped that night at Cedar Pass in Badlands National Park
The cold is not bothering the girls and they have become adept at winter camping albeit we have lots of blankets, pillows, therma-rest pads and good winter clothing.
In the morning we continued our daily ritual of warming up in the visitor center and collecting our Jr. Ranger Badges. The girls are learning a lot about the geological history of the great plains and the mega fauna that once roamed this part of the world.
We set out to hike a trail…
but the conditions were too icy to make a safe descent
Colleen is up at the too icy narrow spot.
…so down we went and were content with a very short hike.
Minuteman Missile National Historic Site
We heard about the Minuteman Mmissile National Historic Site at Dinosaur NM from Ranger Tiffany and were interested enough to check it out.
Low Frequency Antennae
Cold War Art
Cold War Art on the Blast Door
We were lucky enough to catch the ranger and he was happy to give us a tour of the command post where the missiles would have been launched from; no missiles at this site but the ranger was ex air force and had actually worked in this command post back in the 1980’s.
Inside the command post 30 feet underground in a capsule suspended upon huge chains and inside 4ft of reinforced concrete. We learned to protocal for launching the missiles and all the redundancies that would have made the launch impossible by one crazed mad man and all the back ups that would have made taking out the command post equally impossible. The post was decommissioned in 1993 and we were surprised to learn that there are still 150 ICBM’s spread out over Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming.
The girls were very patient and although they could not earn a Jr. Ranger Badge because all that was packed up to be moved to the new visitor center our guide did give them each a squadron patch!
