Driving down the road in South Dakota you expect to see signs for local attractions such as Wall Drug. And we stopped in to see why everyone goes to Wall Drug. The 5 cent coffee was a big draw. And being able to ride a massive Jackalope excited Mrs Ram.
For me Wall Drug was a cross between Building 19, Spags (1) and a variety of tourist trinket shops. They also had foods, knives, real Cowboy hats and boots.
The signs that you would not expect to see were ones that said “ICBM launch site that could destroy the world” this exit. Ok it did not say that exactly. They used to say something like “Delta-09”. They did not want technicians or MPs getting lost trying to find the launch sites.
They also wanted the Soviets to know we had lots of launch sites. It’s that “Peace through superior fire power” thing. Count the road signs, the small fenced in areas with a big missile hatch, antenna and spotlight and decide a nuclear strike was just not worth it.
The guide at the missile site had worked on disarming the older missiles no longer in service like the one we saw and made the stop very interesting.
If you do want to see the ICBM launch control facility though you will need to make a reservation months in advance. As anyone following us knows we are lucky if we know were we will be next week never mind in a few months.
End Notes
(1) Building 19 and Spags, were salvage stores that were in New England. You could find just about anything there at any given time. They were not always well organize and you usually felt like you need to wash up after going to them. I do miss Building 19 – their coffee was free.
Yeeeuh, 19 and 19 1/2. You actually had to wash your hands when you left, but they had SOME good deals. We have a store here like that in VF, PA called Ollies. I think he knows the Bldg 19 folks. Anyway, the ICBM site is malarchy. If they EVER looked like that, they don’t anymore. Think 007 and you get more to the reality.