July 24th - Fort Thompson, SD, to Rapid City, SD

After a beautiful sunrise over the hills on the east bank of the Missouri River, we hit the road. A timely potty break brought us to the Minuteman Missile National Monument. Hank was less enthralled, so our time there was limited.

The next stop was Badlands National Park, which looked kind of like the painted desert or perhaps a miniature version of Bryce Canyon.  We learned that the name came from early French trappers. The oldest fossils there are from the period when there was a shallow inland sea across the plains of North America. There are many fossils of large mammals from 20-30 million years ago, including ancestors of the modern dog and horse. We saw big horn sheep on the way out of the park!

No visit to South Dakota would be complete without a visit to Wall Drug. https://www.walldrug.com/ the iconic tourist stop that travelers anticipate for 300 miles as they read the periodic road sign stands that extend for at least that range in both directions on I-90 from the tiny town. Hank first learned of this roadside attraction, which was founded in 1931, in a business school case study in strategic management. It started as a simple drug store. Now it is a 76,000 square-foot roadside attraction and emporium that pulls in more than 2 million visitors and $12 million in revenue. Our main interest was the t-shirt shop, but we also enjoyed the five-cent coffee and homemade ice cream. There are signs all over the world that show the direction and distance to Wall Drug. If you want to calculate the distance from your location, here are the coordinates: 43.9929° N, 102.2415° W.

We arrived at our campsite at Ellsworth AFB in Rapid City, SD; it was beautifully constructed and well maintained. It was close to I-90 and had a large adjacent lawn where we could run off the dogs' excess energy.