Wall Drug and the Badlands

Hidden among the many miles of prairies, are Minuteman missile silos, the Badlands National Park, and the somewhat (?) famous Wall Drug of Wall, South Dakota.

I didn't get a picture of the Minuteman Missile National Memorial because all you could see was the visitor center, which was very good. There were many displays and photos of an active silo.  The rest was all prairie.

Our next stop was Badlands National Park. In looking at the photos, you may notice a strong resemblance to Tent Rocks in New Mexico. We thought it was amazingly similar. Although the Badlands stretches for many more miles.

It wasn't a very hospitable place, as the Visitor Center placard tells us.

Lastly we made a stop at Wall Drug. This place covers an entire city block in a tiny town that stretches maybe six blocks by four blocks. Here you can pan for gold, take a mining tour, eat lunch at a café that seats 350, sit at an actual soda fountain and have a malt or a shake, view the art gallery, play in the water park, go through about 50 independent shops, and oh, they do have an actual drugstore in the center.

A bit of serendipity happened today. The Great Race is a car road rally held using vintage cars. It just so happened they were traveling the same stretch of road between Rapid City and points east. We saw them going through Badlands and on the interstate; here's one car.