Today we woke up in Wall with very dreary skies and highs expected in the mid-40's, but at least it wasn't raining or snowing. We traveled just a few miles up the interstate to the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site. It just opened in May of this year and provides tours of a Minuteman missile launch control center and an actual missile silo. Much of the tour was outside and with the strong wind it was very chilly. After a couple hours we returned to Wall to visit Wall Drugs. Wall Drugs is quite famous and a popular landmark but didn't really offer anything we needed. Actually, it was quite tacky.

In the afternoon we drove the 27-mile loop through the Badlands National Park. The scenery would have been very beautiful had the sun been able to penetrate the heavy cloud cover. However, with the gray skies everything looked pretty bland. Still, it's an interesting change in landscape from the grassy prairie and the Black Hills.

On our way back to Rapid City we took an hour to visit the SD Air and Space Museum just outside the main gate to Ellsworth AFB. We could see a B-52 and B-1B bomber up close as well as several other vintage aircraft.

Tonight we found our hotel, ate a pasta dinner at Boston Gourmet Pizza and walked the nearby mall. Tomorrow we plan to catch a couple local sites and then hightail it back to Billings, MT for our last night before coming home.