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The campground where we spend the night is right off of Exit 131 of I90 which is the exit that leads to Badlands NP heading south on 240. On the other side of the highway heading north is the Minuteman II Missile National Historic visitor center and museum. It is one of many sites you can visit along I90.
The museum contains information about missiles and satellites. A short drive up the road is D-1 site where you can tour a missile silo, I knew the tour required advance ticket purchase because they sell out. I did not purchased it ahead of time. I do not like to commit to that kind of schedule. I checked last night and it was sold out, the visitor center confirmed that this morning.
Since we had to skip D-1on exit 127, we then drove to exit 116 where there is a missile launch pad. It is out there in the middle of nowhere down a dirt road. The place is fenced in and unmanned. There were a few cars coming and going while we were there. When we were about to leave a car pulled up and asked us where we were from in Buffalo. It turns out they were from Tonawanda.
From there we visited Wall drug in Wall, an all American road attraction. There is a neat story behind the business. If you are interested in the history, Google it to read all about it.
After lunch in Wall we headed to the Air and Space Museum located in Ellsworth Air Force Base exit 67. It turns out they also offer tours of a missile silo which was used for training. We purchased the tickets for the 3pm tour and looked around the museum while we waited. We are going to go inside a silo after all.
We got on a bus that drove us into the base to the site. Most silos only have one way in down a very secure hatch, but this one since it was used for training, it had a set of stairs. We went 30 ft. underground to view it. By the way since this is inside a military base we had to provide our driver license and were later informed they ran a full background check. The tour guide said people have gotten pulled off the bus by military security for finding all kinds of felonies and people on missing person reports.
All this touring we originally had planned for tomorrow as we drove from Badlands to Rapid City. Now a day ahead of schedule I had to figure out what to do for the night. Yesterday I called ROD and they said the Campground could not take us a day early. I decided to call the campground directly today and sure enough we can come in. I had to call ROD back and tell them to add the night. We had a short 19 Mile drive to get there.
Now I had to figure how to get the car so we do not have to move the RV once we set up camp for the rest of the week. Enterprise called me while we were on the tour to confirm the reservation. As it turns out they will not pick us up. In Massachusetts they drove 11 miles to get us so I did not see that coming. While checking in, the Campground is advertising a local car rental that will deliver the car to us. I called them and they said they do their deliveries in the morning and I will have to call them back at 7:30 to get a quote. We called a taxi company to see if they will come out to drive us to Enterprise and they said yes. It's going to be expensive cab ride, but worth the money not to move the RV.
I will get up early tomorrow to see which way will be more cost effective and decide what we will do. That will not be a problem since I am still sort of in Eastern Time. It's now 10 pm EST which means is 8 pm mountain time and I am having a hard time keeping my eyes open writing this post.
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