The Wandering Scot

An occasional travel journal

Tag: USA

  • North Dakota: ABM Sites


    The MSR Pyramid

    North Dakota is home an abandoned 1970s Anti-Ballistic Missile complex, originally intended to protect the US ICBM launch sites from incoming missiles. In theory, it was a de-escalation step, since the ability to protect the launch sites would give the US more time to stop and think if it spotted what seemed to be an incoming Soviet attack. Sadly Congress didn’t believe the system would actually work, and the Soviets probably didn’t either, so it was shut down in 1976.

    Since I’ve visited three ICBM launch sites (the Titan Missile Museum, a Soviet SS-24 site and a Minuteman site) I decided it was time to look at the other side of things!

    The main surviving relic is the imposing and mysterious “MSR Pyramid”, a giant phased array “Missile Site Radar”. Unfortunately it isn’t open for visits.

    MSR Pyramid and cryptic ancillary structures

    I also drove by RSL #3, one of the interceptor missile launch sites.  That was also closed today, but apparently the owner does run tours in the summer months.

  • North Dakota: Fargo

    I’m in Fargo, North Dakota, where I’ve been participating in Traditional Local Customs.

    Yes, this is the actual wood chipper used for body disposal in the movie Fargo.  Oh ya, you betcha! 😃  It’s now the star attraction at the Fargo Visitor Center.  You can bring your own body parts.

    Update October 2024:  I revisited the Fargo Visitor Center on another road trip.  This time I invested in an official “Fargo Wood Chipper” Trapper Hat for extra verisimilitude.

  • North Dakota: Minuteman Museum

    I’m in North Dakota, visiting the Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile Site.  It’s a real (retired) Minuteman control silo. It’s one of several Minuteman sites that were closed down under the START treaty ICBM limits.

    A giant freight elevator takes you down 52 feet to the command level, then there is a 7 ton blast door leading into the armored command capsule, mounted on giant shock absorbers.  The original command consoles are intact.  Please don’t press any buttons.

    It was fun to visit the launch controls, but, unlike with my visits to the Titan Missile Museum or the Pervomaisk SS24 museum, they don’t let you simulate a launch.  But this one definitely scores extra credit for being a museum representative of the many still-active Minuteman Missile sites in the Mid-West, which are still very much alive, manned, and ready for service.  Gulp.

  • New Mexico: Alien Egg Hatchery

    New Mexico’s Bisti/De-Na-Zin is a confusing trackless wilderness, but in these days of GPS and downloadable maps, that’s not a big issue.

    I saw lots of hoodoos, some petrified wood, many weird rocks.  But the main thing I was looking for was the “Cracked Eggs” aka the “Alien Egg Hatchery“.  This is an area with dozens of odd oval rocks, looking like weird alien eggs, some of which have hatched.  It’s quite cool.

    I would like to have brought back an egg and tried to hatch it, but I think the park service would disapprove.

  • A Botanical Road Trip

    I’m on an all-electric road trip through California into Arizona and back. The trip has ended up having a distinctly botanical flavor, including visits to:

    Joshua Tree Forest
    Scotsman at Joshua Tree NP
    Palm Canyon: Green palm trees in the desert
    Tahquitz Canyon: 6 ft red barrel cactus
    “The Worlds Largest Tree”
    Desert Botanical Garden
    Saguaro Forest, North of Phoenix

  • Arizona: Yuma Territorial Prison

    I’m doing an all-electric road trip across California into Arizona.

    I’ve got delayed a little in Yuma, Arizona, at the Yuma Territorial Prison – apparently there was a problem with my paperwork when I bought my admission ticket. I’m sure it will all be fixed soon, but if someone could bake me a cake in the meantime that would be great.

    The Yuma Territorial Prison operated from 1876-1909. It was relatively progressive for its day, with a library and even a prison band. But it had a fearsome reputation because of its two rows of granite high-security cells that became miserably hot in the Arizona summer.

    High-Security Cell Block
    Fellow Inmates
    Yuma High School Wrestling Team

    A few years after the prison was closed, the Yuma High School burned down and school classes were temporarily moved into the former prison while a new school was built.   This earned the school sports teams the sarcastic nickname “the Criminals”.  A name which they then seized as their own and still use today.