Chapter 6: Let’s Play Global Thermonuclear War.
It was getting close to 2:00 p.m., and we’d just finished our driving tour of Rt. 240 through Badlands National Park. We drove north to I-90 and then headed east on the highway, getting off at exit 116 in the exact center of nowhere. Just a few hundred feet beyond the exit, the road turned to a dirt road. The only thing breaking up the monotonous landscape was a fenced-in area containing a couple of antenna poles and some sort of concrete structure. There was a small parking area outside the fence where we and our friends pulled up.
This is the location of the Delta-09 missile silo, part of the
Minuteman Missile National Historic Site. This is one of the silos that was decommissioned under the START Treaty and left preserved as a museum exhibit, as I explained in the previous chapter.
The National Park Service offers a free cell phone tour of this site—you just call into a number and walk around the site, following the prompts as the narrator describes the purpose of each item at the site. We didn’t have time to walk around and follow along step-by-step, but we tried calling in while we were driving just to get an idea of what we were looking at. It was pretty helpful.
It was a quick visit, but I wanted to make sure we got a look, because how many chances do you get to see an actual nuclear missile silo? It was hard to get a photo of the interior due to the glass reflecting the sunlight, but we managed to get this one:
No, that’s not a real missile. At least, I don’t think it is.
After a few minutes of poking around and failing to cause a national security incident, we had to leave to get to our tour. My friends volunteered to take Drew with them back to Rapid City while they shopped for their own road trip supplies. One of their children really wanted to do the tour, so he got the extra ticket and rode with us. It all worked out well.
We drove to exit 127 and again found ourselves on a lonely dirt road, headed to a nondescript house that was completely fenced in. A park ranger was there waiting for us, unlocking the gate for us to enter.
I present to you the imposing, intimidating Delta-01 command facility, which looks exactly like a structure designed to end life as we know it:
Wait, sorry—it looks like one of those crappy personal storage units where some creepy guy in the front office who hasn’t showered in three days rents you a garage to keep your extra junk. Which I suppose was somewhat intended.
Our tour began promptly at 2:45, basically a private tour for our family plus one woman who had missed the previous tour. The ranger graciously allowed her to tag along. The ranger started by showing us the 1970’s equivalent of a shredder: the burn box. Every day, this was where missileers brought sensitive documents to be burned to insure they never fell into enemy hands.
Seems to me they could recycle that for Bingo Night at the nursing home.
I forget the official name of this vehicle, but this was the all-terrain vehicle the workers had to take to go check on the various missile sites. Proximity alarms would go off every time a deer or other critter jumped the fence at a silo, and these poor guys would have to jump in the truck to go investigate and make sure it wasn’t a break-in. The tires were solid rubber, which was great for durability but awful for a smooth, comfortable ride. They hated this part of the job.
The ranger giving our tour was a quirky guy with a dry sense of humor. I’d seen him earlier that morning when we were buying one of everything in the gift shop, and we had started joking about what the TSA might think of some of the items if they searched our luggage. We both thought it would be funny to put a green glowstick in there to really sell the gag. Or at least, it would be funny in somebody else’s bag.
Anyway, the ranger told us that for the tour, he wanted us to start thinking like spies and saboteurs—to try and adopt the mindset of how someone could break in and/or tamper with the site to cause a rogue missile launch. In fact, he said, he was pretty sure there was a spy among us—and by the end of the tour, he’d be able to tell us who it was.
This made sense—if you recall in the opening chapter, I’d mentioned that one of us was most definitely a spy. Considering the way the beginning of the trip had been completely sabotaged, it wasn’t hard to imagine.
The ground floor of Delta-01 had all of the government-issue blandness you’d expect. The officer’s quarters:
Dining room and lounge:
In the kitchen, the ranger pointed out that the refrigerator and freezer were locked. Any guesses why?
Remember, you have to think like spies and saboteurs. Only the cook would have the key to the lock, to make sure no one could poison the food supply.
At the front of the building was a large desk in a room with windows all around and several phones. This was the lookout station. Guards here would be ready to call in an alert if anyone approached the building from the outside. So, in essence, their job was to sit in there for hours at a time staring at the South Dakota landscape.
Yeah. You couldn’t pay me enough. At least they got rotated out. Soldiers manning this and other command posts came from the nearby Ellsworth Air Force Base.
We then piled into the tiny, cramped elevator. This is the reason tours are limited to six people (or 7, when the ranger is feeling generous). The elevator was only built to handle two missileers and all of their gear. Everything in the building is preserved exactly as it was when it was in operation, so there are no plans to build a newer, bigger elevator. They want to keep the historic accuracy intact. I see this as a good thing.
I even found this reminder posted on the elevator wall. Imagine if this was your daily honey-do list.
We all piled in and the ranger closed and locked the gate. Only then did he ask us if we had insurance. The reason he asked is because we were all in an elevator built in a couple of weeks by a low bidder who’d never built one before and didn’t know how to spell the word “emergency”.
Then he hit the button and we descended 20-30 feet underground.
We managed to get to the bottom safely. Just outside the door, there were several historic photos on display. This one showed the actual missile command hub under construction. This is where we were heading.
That cylinder housed all of the firing controls for the missile station. It was mounted on some sort of hydraulic jack system that would keep it perfectly still—no matter what was going on above the surface. No accidental vibrations or tremors to cause any problems.
Inside the control room, the ranger showed us all of the various apparatus designed to end all life as we know it. There was most likely less computer power in this room than in the device you’re reading this trip report on. He gave us a detailed show on how a missile launch would actually work—and yes, there are two different stations where a missileer would have to insert and turn a key simulataneously in order to successfully launch. Those two key stations were designed so there was no way one person could reach both at the same time. Even when the keys were turned, nothing would necessarily happen—agreement on the launch command had to come from the command center at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska—or, if it were compromised, from Looking Glass. Looking Glass was (and, I believe, still is) an airborne command center. It is constantly flying, serving as the backup command center in case the ground base is destroyed or compromised.
I liked this label of “Secret Crypto”. That just sounds cool.
Here, Scotty demonstrates the proper technique for destroying a continent.
Again, thinking as a saboteur, the ranger asked if we had any way of sabotaging the equipment. He pulled out a tiny golf pencil and showed that he could simply shove the end into one of the missile locks and then break it off, rendering it useless. However, the designers had even thought of that, so they’d built in a way for the command center or Looking Glass to take over and control the launch if need be.
Delta-01 did have rations and supplies for about a week in case of nuclear attack. There was even an escape tube attached to the hub. But the missileers themselves knew the “escape tube” was basically a placebo. Theoretically, it was a tube filled with sand, and when they popped open the hatch, the sand would fall out and they'd have a path to the surface. In a nuclear attack, the pressure and heat from a launch would be so intense that it would turn the sand to glass, sealing the tube forever. Most of them knew that an attack meant they were never leaving.
The ranger started to lead us out of the hub, stopping to mention that he was about to name the spy embedded in our family. We filed out behind him, ready to capture the perpetrator. We gathered outside the elevator, waiting for Sarah to bring up the rear.
“There you have it,” the ranger said. “Your daughter is the spy.”
Aha! Book her, Dan-o!
How was the ranger so sure? Simple, he said. “The spy is always the last one to leave.”
We walked back to our van and thanked him profusely. As we left, the next tour was just starting, right on time. You wouldn’t expect anything less from a military operation.
Standing outside the van, I took a look around at the vast nothingness of South Dakota and the nondescript building beside me. Somewhere out there were thousands of silos holding nuclear missiles like the one we’d seen earlier. It was hard to believe that from this very location in the middle of nowhere, life could have ended. It was a little creepy.
You would think that all of this site would be top secret, but in actuality, it wasn’t. Everyone knew where the missiles were generally located. This was part of the national policy of Deterrence. The idea was that if your enemy knew exactly how much firepower you had, they’d realize the futility of ever launching that kind of assault against you, knowing it would result in mutually assured destruction. Seems crazy, but no one ever started a nuclear war—so, I guess it worked.
I can’t recommend this tour enough. We all loved it. Speaking for myself, it was my favorite thing we did on the trip. It was a completely unique tour, and I’m glad we made the effort to get up early and see it.
You might think that after a national park and a tour of a missile site, our day would be full. But you would be wrong. There was still that matter of collecting on a promise of Free Ice Water. We drove west on I-90 and stopped in the tiny town of Wall, South Dakota. It was time to visit
Wall Drug.
Let’s get this out of the way: Wall Drug is a tourist trap. That should be completely obvious. Thousands of billboards littering the highways, the fact that it’s obnoxiously big enough to cover a city block, and overly kitschy western theming give it away.
However, I think it was worth a stop—once. I certainly wouldn’t recommend multiple visits. I think Wall Drug partially redeems itself by the fact that it knows it’s a tourist trap, and embraces the role fully and completely. They’ll sell you any crappy souvenir you can think of, and a few you haven’t dreamed up yet. It has a sense of humor about itself in a way that South of the Border did not.
And in defense of tourist traps, I’ll say this: when I go on vacation, I don’t want to see ordinary homes, buildings, or neighborhoods. I want to see things I’d never get to see at home. This fits that description. And when you think about it, isn’t Disney World a very nice, luxurious, high-tech tourist trap?
We made sure to track down our free ice water. They didn’t make it very easy to find, but the kids were obviously very excited. Excited in that, “Dad, why exactly are we here again?” kind of way.
We also grabbed a free “Where The Heck Is Wall Drug?” bumper sticker. After all, if it’s free, it’s for me.
Some of the popular items in the store reference the legendary South Dakota jackalope, which I’ve never encountered in the wild but I’m sure is very ferocious.
Or you may want a wine/beer bottle holder. You never know if you need one of those.
Out back, they have a water play area and a photo spot where you can take a ride on the legendary jackalope. I mean, why wouldn’t you want to visit this place?
All in all, we probably spent about 20 minutes, including a bathroom break, wandering and either laughing or rolling our eyes at the sheer stupidity of the place. It was probably about 17 minutes too long, but now we’ve been there, and…well, we probably don’t need to go back.
We met up with our friends for dinner in downtown Rapid City at the
Firehouse Brewing Company. Our friends had arrive early, maybe about 4:45 p.m. or so, and grabbed a couple of tables. We got there about 5:00. The place got packed shortly after that. Again, people, Rope Drop works.
We somewhat reluctantly exchanged their potty-trained son for our non-potty-trained toddler. Then we made all of the kids sit at a separate table anyway. The restaurant gives all children a free plastic fireman’s hat. Yes, this is what dinner typically looks like at my house.
Anyway, the Firehouse gets its name from—you guessed it—being built in an old firehouse. That made for a pretty neat atmosphere. We were actually sitting outdoors on their “patio” which was in an old garage bay. Also, I think they wanted to make sure all of these kids kept their noise outside. Smart.
I wouldn’t have minded sampling one of their house brews, but ever since our older kids started ordering off the adult menu, we’ve instituted a “Water Only At Dinner” policy in order to try and keep my wallet from overheating. It doesn’t work, but it feels like we’re trying. We were all in the mood for burgers, and the Firehouse delivered on that front. I had the western burger, with bacon, cheddar, BBQ sauce and an onion ring, while Julie went for the Hawaiian burger, with BBQ sauce, ham, Swiss cheese, and a pineapple slice. We were very satisfied, and I managed to secure a new pint glass for my collection at home as well. Not the best place we ate on the trip, but it was a good meal.
We left Rapid City and headed south, arriving that evening in the tiny town of Custer, South Dakota. The Comfort Inn here would be our home for the next two nights. We got a “suite” with a pull-out couch bed just to give us a little extra room. With a big family such as ours, I’ve found that it helps to occasionally find a deal on a larger room like that, especially if we’re spending more than one night. In that situation, we can spread out a bit and no one has to sleep on the floor. It makes for a good break from the routine.
But, I’m a cheapskate, so it’s not the norm. And I only book it if I can get a good deal. We’d be back to throwing kids on the floor before too long.
Coming Up Next: Following in Aladdin’s footsteps.
I bet you could see Mexico!
Is that better?
Does that mean if Trump gets elected, I could get a job as his foreign policy advisor?
I have a feeling you'd be at least as qualified as anyone he would recommend!
