I've long been contemplating a Great Plains road trip. My main purpose was adding a few more national parks and monuments to my list, but it was also a chance to explore more of states I have mostly just passed through. I also decided to add two more Canadian provinces to my list (now totaling nine)
Most of my journeys across Wyoming have been on I-80 heading east to schooling, a job or to fun places further east. The middle of Nebraska was usually the end-of-day destination but today I didn't need to go as far ,so I decided to make a few stops and side trips along my way.
Rest stop near Fort Bridger.
These pioneers included every one of my 16 great-grandparents.
Drove through Green River
Earlier this year a work friend from Deer Valley was killed in a big pile up on I-80 during a freak snowstorm. It was therefore of interest to me to notice this time through Wyoming many highways along the way had stop gates at the ready to close down dangerous routes and alternate routes posted. I encountered a short squall with intense side blowing snow in the hills between Laramie and Cheyenne. It was not a fun or safe feeling experience.
Refineries of Sinclair from a distance.
Took a backroad route through Medicine Bow and Rock River.
I spent the first night in Gering Nebraska.
Hotel breakfast decor. The whole Scott's Bluff area highlights its location along pioneer trails.
I spent the morning hiking to the top of Scotts Bluff. Mitchell Pass is in the distance with Scotts Bluff on the right/north.
Scotts Bluff
Looking north over the town of Scotts Bluff.
Looking west with a bend in the North Platt River at left center.
Looking east to Gering and Chimney Rock on the horizon in the very center of the photo.
Right near the entrance of the national monument was this interesting and huge museum.
North Platt River and Scotts Bluff to the southwest.
Scotts Bluff from the east.
Chimney Rock
Heading north into the Dakotas.
Spent the night in Hot Springs South Dakota.
My first stop was a 9:30 scheduled 90-minute tour of Wind Caves. I had driven through this park years ago but didn't have time for cave touring.
I went on the fairgrounds tour.
The natural entrance. With changes in barometric pressure the cave either inhales or exhales wind which can blow the two red ribbons in or out. I now know was a barometric cave is.
I did a short hike around the visitor center.
I then drove back to Wind Cave NP for a hike out to see a prairie dog town in Cold Brook Canyon.
Then drove north through the park and then through Custer State Park for some nice wildlife sitings.
The winding drive up and over on Needles Highway (87) was perhaps my favorite drive of the trip. It was snowy at times.
Spent the night in Rapid City--which has good South Asian Indian curry.
Next morning I headed out to explore Badlands NP. I did a drive through years ago but wanted to explore more.
I started with an unmarked Red Shirt Table Overlook on the far southwest side, then drove around the southwest section finally entering the park along the Sage Creek road at the west end of the northern section.
This was a short, fun hike. The wooden ladder wasn't that bad.
A real missile (decommissioned) in a real silo.
The command center with protective bunkers underneath.
My interest in visiting Minuteman Missile National Historic Site goes way back to my childhood during the height of the Cold War. In first grade at Providence Elementary in 1961, I remember having an air raid drill in which all the school children went down into the boiler room area in the basement of the old part of the school (above) to wait out nuclear Armageddon. Sixth grade boys were tasked with wheeling in carts of books that we would read until it was safe (or we all died!).
Over the next few years, I started to notice signs like this around town, mostly in public buildings with basements. At Adams elementary in Logan we practiced running home in air raid drills to seek safety. Luckily, we lived kitty-corner to the school, so my run home was quick.
I always imagine that the eight Emmetts would gather in our windowless basement "fruit room" to wait out the missiles. I thought we would all sleep on the floor between the shelves of our good Mormon two-year supply of wheat (in the garbage cans), sugar, store bought canned and boxed food, and home bottled fruits, vegetables and jams. No actual photo exists of that fruit room, but his is how Copiolot interpreted my written description. Sadly, specifics like numerous Jello Boxes, half pint jars of chokecherry syrup, canned peas and stewed zucchini (yech to both), bottles on Miracle Whip, or boxes of Sugar Frosted Flakes did not make the cut and I didn't want to further endanger the Great Salt Lake by requiring the use of more data to make it all more authentic.
Cold war hysteria was lambasted (and also fueled) in this amusing movie about the sailors of a crippled Soviet Sub off the coast of Massachusetts who go ashore to a sleeping fishing town on a Sunday morning to get repair stuff. These childhood memories later became illustrative stories used in my political geography class.
What I only vaguely grasped at the time was the geography of where those missiles came from and how they got to Utah. Years later when teaching about geopolitics and the Cold War, I would show a series overhead projector then PowerPoint images of several maps. I would ask what is unusual or not correct about the map above. Sometimes astute students would notice that the map does not show where the missiles going north end up. The green line just disappears north of Siberia. Only Alaska seems vulnerable.
Then I ask why the United States built Air Force bases and missile silos in out of the way places like the Dakotas?
I then showed this map by a Russian immigrant to the USA who used a polar projection to show the actual reach of US and USSR missiles. Those missiles going north from Siberian over the north pole came down on all of Canada (who helped with early warning missile defense) and the US. This map helped spawn the creation of the Air Force and the installation of all the missile silos in the Great Plains. The missiles siloed in South Dakota and else wherre were pointed northward towards the USSR.
This image also so the range of Soviet missiles on the two globes.
After my Cold War pilgrimage. I head east along I-90 to Chamberlain for the night.
The view of the Missouri River from my motel.
An impressive rest stop.
Next stop was the Akta Lakota Museum.
The museum is part of the St. Jospeh's Indian School (Catholic) which was originally built to help assimilate Indians but has now evolved into a prestigious school for Native Americans that seeks to preserve and honor their heritage and culture. The museum was very sobering. The treatment of the indigenous peoples of this country was shameful.
