Well today went well. Slept in a few minute
s more than normal and headed north to see the Devil’s tower national monument. It was a nice drive. I took a couple of snaps and kept going. Went past the Black Hills and circled back almost to the same town I started from. Then I drove through the Badlands of SD. I ran parallel to the I-80 which I would eventually join. The speed limit on I-80 is 80 mph and if you don’t drive close to that, all the big transports pass you. With the easterly wind today, turbulence early in the morning was pretty bad. If transports pass,its quite disconcerting. There was a strange phenomenon when driving in the prairies. Totally random gusts of wind will pop up and sucker punch you. There doesn’t seem to be any rationale for the behaviour.
However, today, I was passing through a gap between 2 low badland mounds. Almost like the wind was waiting for a motorcyclist, the wind bounced of both mounds and then hit me with a one 2 punch. It was really fun.
So, I ended up running long on the I-80 in temperatures that fortunately didn’t exceed 33C. I was tired when I arrived at Mitchell, SD. Seems to have one of every type of hotel I’ve heard of. I’m at the Quality Inn. Poor bike is in desperate need of cleaning – tomorrow I’ll lose the bugs in the obvious places.
Two more days and I’ll be on the ferry crossing Lake Michigan – scheduled for Friday at 6:00 am. I lose another hour on the ferry in the time change.