Day 37 Aug 12 Travel day, off to New Underwood, SD

We left the Badlands and headed off to the small village of New Underwood, about 25 miles east of Rapid City on I-90. Once we arrived in New Underwood it was time for lunch at the local diner. After lunch we spent a couple of hours visiting with Leroy’s uncle George , aunt Betty and cousin Russell, relatives on his mother’s side.

Later we headed a bit further to the north of New Underwood to spend a couple of nights with Pam (cousin) and her husband Don. Rosalie took to both of them immediately. Guess she has good instincts for good people.

Still cloudy at night, no meteorites.

Day 36 Aug 11 Junior Ranger goes to the dog town

Today we went to a couple of Ranger sponsored programs.

 In the morning it was for Rosalie to earn her second junior ranger badge. This one was for poop (scat) identification. After a short talk and hands on, so to speak we went for a short walk down the trail trying to locate evidence of any animal having passed by. We did find a few traces of deer but alas no buffalo or mountain lion near the ranger station.

Then off to visit a period sod house, barn and its accompanying prairie dog town. Within the park they are having an outbreak of some sort of prairie dog plague caused by fleas. I guess the commercial dog town was not affected.

The last ranger event was a story of legends and ghosts to be followed by a star gazing party. The rangers are responsible for coming up with the programs. The talk was interesting but Rosalie fell asleep on the hard concrete ground. I guess the oldsters are able to keep up after all.

Still cloudy at night, no meteorites.

Day 35 Aug 10 - Badlands, Missels, Wall Drug

Up early this morning so that we could be assured a slot for the Minute Man Missile control room tour. This is a look see at the under ground control room where the men would have launched the nukes in the event of a war with the USSR. The small two person control room was 30 or so feet underground suspended on huge shock absorbers. Each control room would control 10 missiles located from 5 to 15 miles from the control room, all connected by a hardened cable. Apparently lots of security around these things at the time, a good thing to.

Leroy thinks he recalls seeing a couple of the missile silo sites as a kid, perhaps on the uncles ranch near Hereford.

There were 150 missiles in South Dakota during the height of the cold war. Those in S.D. have been decommissioned but there are still a bunch scattered around to cause all sorts of havoc. Ellsworth Air Force base just east of Rapid City was the support base.

After a short peek at a training missile silo it was off to Wall Drug.

Motorcyles and lots of them.

We have been seeing lots of motorcycles since we hit I 90. Most are headed east. They must have been the first wave into Sturgis. Thus it was not surprising to see a large number in Wall.

We had brunch in Wall Drug, drank the world famous ice water, scared the bejesus out of the child when the local T-Rex woke up and roared a bit. A bit of people watching, an ice cream cone, grocery shopping and a fuel stop later we were on our way to the Badlands loop from Wall back to Interior.

Lots of interesting geology, a few antelope and prairie dogs. Rosalie seemed very interested/impressed by it all.

Swimming and spaghetti topped off the day. Perhaps tomorrow will be a kick back day. We are looking for a clear night so that we might take in the meteor shower. It would be a shame not to see it out here where the light is at a minimum.

Day 34 Aug 9 - Chamberlain to the Bad Lands

We had another water leak this morning, not nearly as bad but frustrating. The trailer has a water compartment that supposedly should prevent any leaks from the water connections getting into the basement of the trailer, supposedly. The city water connection had a slow drip, drip, drip. Managed to get it dried some, then more once we got to the Badlands.


We got into the camp site at a decent hour as we only had about 2 hours of drive time and no distractions on the way. We did get a pretty good rain storm though. The tent campers next door retreated to their car, two parents and 5 kids....

We seem to be having trouble with posting pictures so the blog will be a bit sparse for now.

Day 33 Aug 8 - A new record, getting on the road late

You might have thought yesterdays start was a record for getting out of town late.... You would of course be wrong. We did not get "gone" until 2:30. At this rate we will need to rename this blog....

While in Pipestone we decided to visit the Pipestone National monument. This is a quarry area used by the native American Indians for generations to mine for the red stone used to make the ceremonial pipe bowels. We took our time and walked the trail before heading out.


Got some gas, then decided we should stop for lunch at a place mentioned on RoadFood.com. Not that impressed, but then I guess we did not order the signature dishes.

Finally on the road by 2:30 or so.

We made it to South Dakota and on to Mitchel. Yes, of course we stopped at the Corn Palace. Toured it, learned a bit about the history and had some of their pop corn during the movie. It seems all of the grain material on the palace is grown locally on a 100 acre plot. They had a drought last year or the year before and were not able to complete some of the mural. I guess importing any is out of the question.


I tried to call my niece Sheila to see if there were special things we should do/see at the palace. I understand she really, really "loves" the Corn Palace. A birdi told me that. It was interesting, but I doubt we will stop by again but you never know.

From Mitchel we then made it to Chamberlain for the night. Just across the mighty Missouri river.

Day 32 Aug 7 - On the road again

After two weeks of sitting it does take a bit to get the wheels rolling again. But, we did manage to get gone again, it only took us until 1:30 or so to get out of Cold Spring. Told you it would be hard leaving.

Got the things back in place, loaded up the rest of the "stuff" and the crew and headed south/west toward the Badlands of South Dakota.

It's amazing the number of towns and villages that offer a small little out of the way rest stop or park that we can take advantage of, and with a play ground to boot.

Thanks Hanley Falls, Mn

We made it to Pipestone, yes still in Minnesota. If your following this at all you know by now that we take our time. After all we do have all year to get this done so we are not in a major rush.

I suspect we might reach Chamberlain S.D. tomorrow evening, then roll into the Badlands area on Friday, unless something catches our eye.....

Day 31 Aug 6 - Pay up and pick it up

Hung around all day waiting for the call that the trailer was done.

Leroy's sister Vi came up for a day visit, just could not get enough of us I guess. It was nice of her to take the time to come see us off.

Picked up the camper just as the service dept closed. They seemed to do a good job at Outlet Recreation in Clearwater. We have some more to do on it but that will wait until we are back in Texas. Outlet Rec are an expansion of the main store in Fargo, I think it was. Open in Clearwater since April. They were great about helping us out and getting us on our way again. Thanks guys....

Did a bit of hauling stuff out to the trailer but the heart just was not into packing it up. It will be hard to head out tomorrow.

A late afternoon double rainbow