Badlands

Monday morning was checkout in Rapid City, but we still had so many things we wanted to see and do! At the top of the list was the Minuteman Missile site. It is run by the National Park Service and has a rather small visitor's center. We were fascinated with some of the displays and for the first time, I felt like I understood the Cuban Missile Crisis.

We also stopped by a missile silo that is no longer functional, giving us a chance to appreciate the size and structure of the actual missiles.

Then we were off to the Badlands. I had never seen mountains quite like these before and the kids were super excited to strap on their fanny packs and take a short hike right over the tops of these boulders. I was a bit more cautious, but right there with them.

My biggest regret about this trip was that we never got enough time to really see all we wanted to see at any given area. We could have spent the entire day exploring the Badlands, but we had hotel rooms already lined up and our vacation had an absolute ending because the two youngest kids started school on Wednesday.