Team Breitmann World Tour: South Dakota - Mt Rushmore, Badlands & Nukes!

Hailey took this fine picture of Team Breitmann, as we rolled into the great State of South Dakota.

The map above gives you a good idea of the area we roamed around for about a week. We stayed on Ellsworth Air Force base at the family campground. You can find it on the northwest corner of the map. We went to Mt. Rushmore, Badlands National Park, and the Minuteman National Historic Site.

A nice family from Chicago took our picture here at the entrance of Mt Rushmore park.

Bigger than life sculpture with "bigger than life" red-heads! We were four of over 3 million visitors, annually, to Mt. Rushmore. Mt Rushmore depicts 60-foot granite sculptures of four of America's presidents. It is located in the Black Hills near the town of Keystone. From left to right: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. Do you know why the sculptor, Gutzon Borglum chose those four? George Washington symbolizes the foundation of our great Nation because he led us in the War for Independence and set the precedence for every presidency since; Thomas Jefferson symbolizes the expansion of the country due to his visionary Louisiana Purchase of the vast American western territories from the Emperor Napoleon of France; Teddy Roosevelt symbolizes economic growth and prosperity due to his foresight in forging the creation of the Panama Canal; and lastly, Abraham Lincoln symbolizes preservation and unity of the United States of America.

Hailey earns yet another Jr. Ranger badge at Mt. Rushmore. You go, cowgirl!

Hailey shows of her vast collection of Jr. Ranger badges & patches she has earned on our travels. Fifteen so far...count 'em!

Team Breitmann negotiates "Needles Highway" in the Black Hills. Needles Higway, as it is known after splitting from US 16A, is aptly named after the high granite "needles" that the road winds among. The highway passes thru tunnels blasted thru sheer granite walls at Iron Creek (mile 25), Needles Eye (mile 31) and Hood Tunnel at milepost 33.

This tunnel brought back some childhood memories! I remember my dad trying to negotiate this highway pulling our family travel trailer. It did not work out so well! We ended up getting one of the side rear-view mirrors ripped off due to the fact that we did not have the appropriate clearance from the granite walls. Granite walls = 1 Suburban mirror = 0. Luckily, we did not make the same mistake and try to drive our way into the Black Hills via this route in our massive Urban Assualt Vehicle! Tactical route planning does pay off at times!

Ah, the Cold War! I miss it sometimes! What?! You say! Well, at least the Russians were highly predictable and not crazy like some of our current foes. During the Cold War (spanning roughly from the late 1940's to the collapse of the USSR (Russia) in 1991, the United States and Russia operated under the concept of "M.A.D" or Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine. Under this construct, both sides understood that each side had the capability to virtually destroy each other thereby assuring that neither side would use their nuclear arsenal on the other due to the knowledge that the other maintained the capability to launch a massive devastating retaliatory strike. Essentially, "Peace Thru Superior Firepower". In layman's terms, this is akin to standing up to the neighborhood bully with your baseball bat in hand!
Here Hailey stands in front of the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site visitor center. From roughly 1963 to 1994; 150 Minuteman II missiles from the 44th Missile Wing, Headquartered at Ellsworth AFB, dotted the South Dakota prairie landscape. Just two missiles had the destructive blast capacity of 120 percent of all munitions expended during the entirety of World War II. Under the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) Treaty, the 44th Missile Wing was deactivated in 1994 and all 150 missiles were removed from their silos and destroyed, as well as their launch complex with the exception of one site to be used as a historical site. The Russians also have their own equivalent site. The Air Force turned over this site to the National Park Service in 2002 following a final treaty verification visit. The launch site and launch control facility is essentially as it was when the Strategic Air Command maintained them on an approximate 5 minute from notification to launch posture for over 30 years. Of course, there is no warhead or propellant in the missile!
Of note, the United States still maintains 450 of the newer Minuteman III missiles on active duty "alert" in Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming, as a nuclear deterrent against any country stupid enough to initiate "first use" against us.

Stacey and Hailey in front of "Delta Nine" missile launch site. It was constructed in 1963, shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis. It is almost 2 acres in size and is just a half mile from Interstate 90. For years, passersby on I-90 would hardly have known that a nuclear missile lay here ready in 5 minutes to rain death and destruction on the enemy. The site consists of an underground concrete launch tube or "silo" that is 12 feet in diameter and 80 feet deep. The 110-ton concrete silo cover has been rolled away and welded to its rails and the tube has a glass cover allowing viewing of the unarmed Minuteman II missile below. The glass cover not only allows visitors to peer down inside but, it also allows Russian satellites the ability to verify that the site is not operational, in compliance with the START treaty.

Here is a map of the D-09 launch site. You can conduct your own self-guided tour on your phone. Simply dial the number depicted on the map and enter the number of the site point you are interested in hearing more about. You need not "be here". Go ahead and try it yourself!

Here the gals of Team Breitmann await their turn to "sit alert" in D-01 Missile Flight, Launch Control Facility! The D-01 site is about 10 miles to the east-southeast from D-09. D-01 is where two Air Force officers would "pull alert" in an underground "capsule" and would be responsible for being ready to launch up to 10 Minuteman II missiles in a moments notice....hence the name for the "Minuteman" missile. Above ground a building contained a kitchen, sleeping quarters, offices for security forces and maintenance crews.

We took a 30 minute guided tour down to the missile crew capsule that is accessible by an elevator that took us down 31 feet below the South Dakota prairie. Hailey poses in front of the missile crew reinforced steel blast door. The "motivational" artwork alludes to the fact that once the Minuteman II missile is launched, it takes no more than 30 minutes to reach it's target with a terminal velocity of around 15,000 miles per hour.

The gals get a look at the "office" of the Missile Launch officer. Launch officers could strap into seats on rails bolted to the floor so that they could continue their launch sequences even as they came under attack and be kept from being thrown around the capsule. The capsule itself is suspended by large chains attached to massive hydraulic shock absorbers. They were designed to dampen the effects of nearby enemy nuclear weapons detonations. A crew could theoretically survive a nuclear attack just outside of 1/2 mile and have about three days of self-sustained air supply. In the event crews had to do the "unthinkable", and launch their missiles they had standing instructions to await further orders once missiles were "away". Uh, yeah right..further orders! Now , that's typical DoD language for..."your on your own"! If you would like to read more about this historic site you can visit the following National Park Service website: Minuteman Missile National Historic Site

We look "bad" don't we!? The Lakota Indians called this place Makhosica, which literally means bad land. The French trappers that came across this place called it les mauvaises terries a traverser"; meaning the "bad lands to cross" and the Spanish called it tierra baldia or "waste land". The term is very appropriate because the area is very hard to travel and has poor soil. However, it is spectacular to view, and is a great place to hunt for fossils.

Right after we entered the Badlands National Park, we were greeted by these two big-horned sheep! The girls thought this was great stuff!

And of course, prairie dogs were EVERYWHERE! They drove our dog, Molly completely insane!

A vista on the drive thru the Badlands.

The badlands yellow mounds.

Hailey says this place looks like something from the desert planet from Star Wars fame. We learned that this area has evidence of once being a shallow sea. Go figure. Have ya ever heard of the "great flood"!