Cookn Travels: Fell In Love With the Black Hills and SD All Over Again..

Custer State Park, Badlands, Minuteman Missile NHS, Pipestone NM and Effigy Mounds NM

The Black Hills and Custer State Park

We were sad to leave Theodore Roosevelt National Park but our hearts were quickly filled with our love for The Black Hills of South Dakota. We visited this area in 2017 and decided to make this apart of our trip again this year.

We stayed in Custer, SD and visited Custer State Park in the heart of the Black Hills. There are prairie and mountain areas, we preferred the mountain area, especially the area called The Needles.

Jagged peaks, single lane tunnels, and lakes made The Needles a picture perfect day.

Animals!

Wild Burrows

Antelope!

Iron Creek Tunnel

Can we make it?

We made it!

The Needles

Needle Eye Tunnel

Here we go again!

Mountain Lake

Badlands National Park, est. 1939.

Brodey requested a return trip to Badlands National Park. We only spent 1 day here in 2017, so this time I booked 3 full days here to give us time to explore and enjoy! The guys hiked and explored, and I relaxed and enjoyed.

Evening Hike on Castle Trail

The first night I dropped Doug, Dunovan and Brodey off on one end of Castle Trail and picked them up at the other. They were escorted at the beginning of their hike by two bighorn sheep. Here are the photos from my point of view and their view as well. The bighorn sheep followed them up the trail, walked past them, then ended on the other side to just relax on a mesa. It was the highlight of the trip for all of them.

My view...

Doug's view...

Day Two Hiking on Notch Trail, Castle Trail and Exploring around the Park

Day two had the boys out exploring again. The Badlands are the place for climbing and exploring and they described it as feeling like you are on another planet.

Day Three drive on Badlands Loop Road

Maintenance items don't go away when you are on vacation and in this case it meant having the oil changed in the truck. We used this opportunity to travel Badlands Loop Road and a day trip to Wall, SD. Made famous for Wall Drug, a huge tourist trap off Interstate 90 in SD. We had lunch at Badlands Bar and Grill, picked the truck back up and got the heck out of Wall!

We came back in on the other side of the park and visited the Pinnacles section of the park. The rock formations in this section have vibrant colors of yellow and reds.

Evening Photoshoot

Off Roading

To learn more about Badlands NP use this link Badlands NP

Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, est. 1999

Just 11 miles north of our campground and right outside of Badlands NP is a hidden gem. During the Cold War, SD was host to many underground Nuclear Weapon silos, armed and ready to be launched at a moments notice. Now, inactive, this National Historic Site keeps the history of this area alive. You can start at the visitor center, watch a very interesting documentary on the history of this program, and visit their museum. There are two other sites you can visit and the Delta-01 site you can tour but need to get tickets online ahead of time. During this tour they will take you underground to see one of the missle silos. We were unable to get tickets because they are limited due to Covid. If you are in this area leave an hour to stop at this visitor center. Very interesting!

To learn more about Minuteman Missile NHS use this link Minuteman

Pipestone National Monument, est. 1937

After Badlands NP, we started making our way back towards PA. Our first stop was Pipestone, Minnesota, we came full circle back to Minnesota. A very small unit at only 282 acres, this park was home to many native american tribes, the Dakota being the most recent.

The Native Americans quarried the rock in this area to make smoking pipes from the pipestone, a very soft stone and easy to carve, giving it its name.

To learn more about this National Park Unit, visit the following link Pipestone NM

Effigy Mounds National Monument, est. 1949

This unit is one that I was really excited about visiting. I just found the history of this land so interesting. The Woodland Indians, which date back as far as 500 AD built these mounds for burial, ceremony or maybe for clan symbols. Effigy mounds can be found throughout the US but the largest concentration in anyone place is in northern Iowa.

We spent the morning in Harper's Ferry, Iowa and Effigy Mounds National Monument amongst the mounds. There are over 200 of them in this area. We saw both cylindrical mounds that were for burials and the one shaped like bears which were either cerimonial for clan identification. They are really amazing to see nestled in the woods. I posted some aerial pictures from the NPS museum to help you see these amazing Effigy Mounds better.