We had a great exhausting day of exploring in the Badlands. We have been before a few years ago but felt we needed to do it all again now that we are older. We started at the Minuteman Missile NHS for Delta 1 rockets. We learned about the history of the program and how it was on guard to help protect us. 
The missiles were positioned so they could get anywhere around the world in a very short amount of time. Thankfully they were never needed. 
I think I would have gone mad if I had to work in this pod for 24 hours. It was very tight. So small that they only allow 6 people on the tour at a time. They only run 6-8 tours a day! So this is a very exclusive look at the Minuteman Missile program. 
After our tour we hike the Window and Door trails at Badlands NP. We learned a lot about the rock formations and how it all came to be in the late Cretaceous period. 
If was getting hot and we didn’t have water left so we stuck close to the main trails and didn’t go more than a mile out. You could easily get lost if you don’t follow the signposts. 
I climbed and jumped off every rock I could find! At least the ones that didn’t end is a rocky craggy death below! 
Some of the drop offs were very very deep. 
Mom braved the off trail for a while. The toe was bugging her but she kept up. 
We hiked the Cliff Shelf as well. It was a zillion stairs both up and down. The total elevation gain was around 200 feet but you had to go down and back up a lot! 
Buffaduck had a tour with us. 
We ended at Wall Drug. It is a strange place full of strange things and yummy food. We visited a lot of the shops and all of the photos opportunities. 
 We stopped off at the South Dakota Air and Space Museuma t Ellsworth AFB to see if we could get a Delta 9 tour, like we had a few years ago. Sadly, since it was off season, they only ran the tours on the weekends. We still had fun in the simulators and exploring before heading back exhausted to Custer.
