Badlands & Bikers – Keystone, SD, UDSA, July 30, 2022

Ron and I had a blast in South Dakota.  We started in Sturgis and spent one night there, one in Keystone, and our last in Kadoka (OK  – not as fun here).  Not only was Ron able to get every needed bike part including changed brakes in Sturgis but we also got our rally t-shirts.  Both of us had been to bike week in Daytona when we were young (Ron many times since his parents would go every year) and I had happened to be there during spring break one year.  This impression was still fresh enough (some 30+ years later) that I really didn’t feel the need to experience Sturgis during the actual week of the rally but was fine being there early.  We then moved onto Keystone to drive Needles Highway and to see Mount Rushmore.

We had a chance to see Mount Rushmore from Needles Highway even though it rained on us.  I do have to say Mount Rushmore was cooler than I thought but also smaller.  Did you know there is a national vault hidden behind Lincoln’s head holding the Declaration of Independence?  There is quite a bit on controversy around Mount Rushmore and the Indians are “retaliating” by carving Crazy Horse which is the largest carving in process in the world.  There is currently no completion date planned.

The four presidents were chosen for specific purposes.  George Washington since he was responsible for the “birth” of our nation.  Thomas Jefferson since he wrote the Declaration of Independence and made the Louisiana Purchase which doubled the size of our nation representing “growth.”  Teddy Roosevelt since he not only ensured monopolies didn’t rule all major industries and was also instrumental in the building of the Panama Canal which was seen as “development” during the most industrialized time in our nation.  Lastly was Abraham Lincoln and he was chosen since he “unified” the nation even through the most difficult time of the Civil War.

The next morning, we ended up going to Badlands National Park and I tell you what, I felt like I was in an episode of Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote all day. It was cool but was really a smaller less colorful version of the painted desert we had seen in Arizona. We did the “badlands loop” and let me tell you knowing what we know now, we would have skipped the unpaved parts of it and just driven through the main portion which is the prettiest. One of the funnest parts was all the prarie dogs! There are hundreds of them!

Then to wrap up our day we ended up at the Minuteman National Landmark which is a historic missile site used right up through the 1990’s. Apparently, in 5 states the US still had “Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles” ready to launch at a moments’ notice which is what keeps the peace with the other nuclear superpowers. They call is “MAD” which means Mutual Assured Destruction. Nothing unsettling about that. The little informative movie and the exhibit talks about how much less risk there is now of nuclear destruction but based on what I see daily in the news with Ukraine, it is hard to still see it that way. They tried hard to convince the audience that the Bay of Pigs in the 1960’s was the closest the world has ever come to nuclear war.