Dietz Summer Road Trip

Today we woke up REALLY early. Our mission was to get in line early for tickets for the guided tour of the Delta-1 control room for the Minuteman Missile Program. But first we wanted to drive a little further through the Badlands and stop at some over looks. Our our way out we finally got to see male big horn sheep!! There were 3-4 of them all right there!

   
 There are great views of the Badlands everywhere you stop, here are a few of the pictures. Just have to beware of the rattlesnakes!

   
  

  
 One last stop on the way out of the badlands was an original sod Prarie home. We were way too early so we couldn’t go up and inside but we did get to stop and look at it from the parking lot. 

    

  

  
We got in line at the Visitor Center for the Minutemen Missiles by 6:40am. It didn’t open until 8am and we were not even the first people in line. The company is line was… interesting. But we did our time and managed to get tour tickets for 9:30 am. They can only take 6 people at a time on the Ranger guided tours because of elevator size as well as the small size of the underground launch room.

We had to drive to the D-1 site. There are a few in the area but the National Historical Site in comprised of the D-1 launch room as well as the D-9 missile silo. Both are not located by the visitor center so you have to drive around to each one. So we went to the D-1 Control Zone and had to be let into the compound by the Ranger. As we waited we managed to figure out the entry code, can you?!

   
  

  
  

  
 The tour starts out with a tour of the security facility of the upstairs. There would be about 6-7 full time security personnel there, whose job was basically to support and protect the missileers that worked underground. 

   
 After the tour of the above ground portion we took an elevator down 34 feet to the entry of the underground missile control room. They were able to paint the blast door anything they wanted to, the people here decorated it like this:

  
All of the sites in the Black Hills are connected with miles of this cable lined with copper that the Ranger showed us a cross section of it before we went into the control room.

   
  

  
 We then walked through a 5 foot tall passage that was also about 5 ft think into the control room. It was for only 2 people, but there always had to be 2 people at once. It was so cool to see and be exactly where the missileers would be everyday during the cold war until about 1993.

   

  

  
  

  
  

  
 The tour was only about 30 minutes total but every thorough. We had a fairly long drive into Nebraska as we make our way eastward back home. There really wasn’t much to look at except for corn, corn, and more corn.  And the Missouri River. 

   
 Finally we landed at the Ashfall Fossil Beds State Park. The got there with about 1 hour left before closing but it was still plenty of time to check out the highlights. They had a great visitor center/exhibit with fossils found here and throughout the area. You then walk outside and you walk a “historical time line” that explains what happened in this area and North America billions-millions of years ago until you finally get to the Ashfall/ super volcano eruption that caused the death of the animals (mainly rhinos) in this area. The coolest thing was the Rhino Barn where it is a worked site and you could watch the people excavate the fossils.

   
  
  
  

  
  

  
  

 
There were a few other trails you could walk around and check out but we could tell they wanted to close so we headed back to the truck. We decided to go to Norfolk, NE for dinner. It seemed to be the only town that showed up on the map that might have some actual restaurants. We found out later it is the birthplace of Johnny Carson and also has a museum and boulevard there in his honor.

We settled on Black Cow Fat Pig. It is a new restaurant that just opened this year and had some local NE beers on tap. It also prides itself on making everything in house and locally sources their meat and produce. They brought us cornbread with homemade butter. It didn’t even last long enough for a picture. For dinner we had Hummus, Chicken Salad, and a BBQ pulled pork/Bacon-Cheddar/Onion Straw Burger. We also got Beignets for dessert. They brought them with a syringe of chocolate, and one of raspberry compote for you to fill them yourself. It was fun and addicting at the same time.

   
  

  
  

 
We camped at Willow Creek State Recreational Area which wasn’t far from Norfolk. It was ok, really quite, but no showers. Its ok because the next 2 nights we will be in a hotel!!

The drive across the mid-west is a lot of driving punctuated by only a few cool things but we are making the most of it!