Days Six and Seven

Today is actually day eight now and I have fallen way behind, so I will give a quick rundown of the last two days before I start on today. Tuesday and Wednesday were both driving days, and as such were relatively uneventful. We traveled from Iowa into South Dakota and made a couple of quick stops.

Tuesday was an all out road day with one brief stop in Tyndall to visit Margaret's mother's childhood home. We were even able to find her grandfather's and some other relatives' headstones at the local cemetery.

The day ended at Al's Oasis in Oacoma, SD. We got in late and left early, so no pictures...

Wednesday we had time to pick our way to Rapid City. We made several stops along the way beginning with the Minuteman Missile site D-1 in Philip, SD. The visitor center and site are at different locations. The kids started working on their Junior Ranger Badges at the visitor center.

The visitor center is next to a Conoco gas station that has an "trading post" attached to it. A big draw of the trading post is the prairie dog town located next door.

After we ate lunch with the prairie dogs, we headed over to the Minuteman Missile site. We got a full tour of the launch capsule and learned that it is located far away from the silos. It was even more meaningful for us because both of Amanda's parents were in the Air Force. Her Uncle Mike was part of the missile site Security Police, who guarded the sites against attacks. We also learned that the missiles could not be launched unless at least two of the five sites were active. If you want to know more, you can ask me when we get back or drive to South Dakota and visit the site.

Once we had finished our tour of the launch site we continued on to the Black Hills. The scenery is beautiful.

That was pretty much all we had in us for the day. Next stop, Rapid City. That is where we are now, and I'll tell you all about it in the morning.