Southbound Rest Area, Sergeant Bluff IA – September 2021
So we stopped at this rest area in Iowa, and when we came out of the rest room – SNAKE!! This is apparently a Western Fox Snake, which feeds on field rodents, not people!
This is a quirky roadside attraction we had to see since we passed right by here. All of the artwork murals are made of corn!The palace is a venue for concerts, sports, conferences and parties.Check out the columns in the lobby.They were set up for a party when we were there.Mt. Rushmore made of corn!Close up of a duck mural so you can see the corn in detail.
Check off another one from my state capitols list!The rotunda.Rotunda close-up.Beautiful rotunda hall.Senate chamber – roll top desks!House of Representatives chamber – more roll top desks!Plaque on the capitol grounds.Fighting stallions sculpture on the grounds.South Dakota Governor’s Mansion. Governor Kristi Noem was unavailable for a photo with us.
Badlands National Park is incredible! Miles and miles of indescribable scenery. I’ll let the pictures do the talking, but even pictures do not do the Badlands justice. The panoramas are as far as the eye can see.Bighorn Sheep!This is what the dry ground here looks like.Full grown bighorn sheep.Another bighorn sheep.Young bighorn watching the sunset.As we leave the Badlands, we saw the only buffalo we saw in the Badlands. In fact, the only animals we saw in the Badlands were the Bighorn Sheep.
This is an incredible site. This visitor center is a museum and they show a 20 minute film that explains the nuclear program that used underground silos in South Dakota and throughout the Great Plains during the Cold War through the 1990s. The site actually consists of three different sites. This visitor center, the underground bunker, and the missile silo itself. We were unable to get tickets for the underground bunker, darn it!This is the missile silo for a Minuteman Missile.This is a disarmed Minuteman Missile in its actual underground silo.
