The Windmill Posts

The Long Way Home to Myself

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  • Fainting Goats at the Center of the Universe 10/31 (4)

    Fainting Goats at the Center of the Universe 10/31 (4)

    Missouri Headwaters

    The only official stop today was at the headwaters of the Missouri river. I paid the fee online, which was handy since I didn’t have cash for an envelope. And now I am sure I’m going to receive emails about the joys of the Montana State Park system. The headwaters themselves were closed. Not the waters, obviously, but access to them. Not for the government shutdown, but due to “dangerous conditions” which seemed to have passed. Got to see the headwaters and it was.. two small rivers coming together. I’m sure there was a reason it was two rivers, but there was no documentation at the site. Disappointing. Score one more for the true source – the Mighty Mississippi!

    Something I found odd about the park was the speed limit. In the park going from place to place it was 65 mph. If it were in Minnesota we’d have you putting along at 25. The frontage road leading to the park entrance was 70. Just didn’t feel right somehow.

    There was one unofficial stop today, and that was Bozeman Montana. I have a friend who grew up there, so I took a picture from the car (including the car interior) of the high school entrance. And then I texted it to him with no explanation. I took a couple generic Bozeman pictures in case they had constructed a new school since he had graduated, but he texted back all sorts of confused. Worth it!

    Mountains

    I feel I’ve covered this topic enough, but had a few things to add based on today’s experience.

    I expected it to be all mountains today but it was flat land with mountains sticking up here and there. Some had snow, some didn’t. It was fun thinking what it must be like up there, in the snow or in the dry areas, way up high. What a view, I’m sure. But so remote and peaceful. Clearly I need to watch Brokeback Mountain again. Not for the Brokeback, but for the Mountain.

    While the flatland got smaller and the mountains closer, we turned a corner and it felt like I was seeing Scotland. The low rolling hills with a thousand hues of green and brown grass and the mountains large and cold looking in the distance. Beautiful.

    Telling stories

    The dark fir trees were interlaced with what looked like yellow fir trees. After a bit of research, they’re apparently Larch trees, and lose their needles. But not after turning a beautiful yellow. The way they’re scattered in the hills, sometimes they’re a few sparse individuals. Other times they’re large sections of the mountain, giving them a mottled appearance. There was one particular mountain that had streaks of the yellow in their dark green.

    Back when the kids were little, I loved making up stories for them. One favorite was the “King of Wisconsin” – back when there were kings and governors and burgermeisters and committees ruling over different parts of the country. Well, the king of Wisconsin was a loathsome dictator, and he had a wall built around the state to keep his subjects in. (I swear to got this was told long before 2016). Well, eventually the President decided everyone needed to be running things the same way, so it was fair and far less confusing. In doing so, some of the leaders were ousted from office. The King of Wisconsin was one of them. But the new governor ordered the wall to be turn down — with the exception that wherever there had been a heavily guarded gate, that wood was to be used to build big welcoming signs saying “Welcome to Wisconsin.” Not just to put forth the message of welcoming, but also to remember the tyrant who built the wall. And that is why the Welcome signs are made of wood – even today!

    Again, seriously I came up with this story in 2006 or so. No political agenda or commentary. It was just a fun story to tell the kids. And I could stretch it out, you gotta believe. I would make that story go on and on and on for so long – and the kids loved it!

    There’s a point coming here. And that’s the fact that I miss telling those stories to the kids.

    And if I had kids in my car today… I would tell them all about the great Flaxton Firehose.

    The Great Flaxton Firehose

    Way back a long time ago, there was a town called Flaxton. This was so long ago it was even before the 1980’s. Before Television! Before Cars! So, a long unspecified time ago. Flaxton was a small mining town on the Flixton river. Total coincidence with the names. Flaxton was named for Eugene Flaxton, the inventor of socks. And Flixton was named for the kitchen took that you used to turn apples inside out.

    The town was doing well. Some folks were mining by tunneling into the mountains. Others were panning for gold. Both were quite successful and all manner of equipment was brought into the town, and the engineers who knew how to use it.

    In the spring of one of those long ago years, I forget which, there was a horrible fire on the mountain to the north. The town was spared, but the fire came close and everyone was very worried about future fires.

    One of the engineers came up with an idea. A hose. A really big hose. One that was so powerful it could shoot massive amounts of water to far away places – like the side of the mountain. It used so much water they couldn’t just fill a tank and use the water from there. They had to put a really big hose in the river, and suck up the water from there. It was a clever system, because the water they shot up onto the mountain would run back down the mountain and back into the stream, so they wouldn’t dry up the Flixton river.

    Wouldn’t you know it,a few months after the project was complete, a lightning strike ignited some underbrush and a huge forest fire was started. Everyone in Flaxton came out to help. They set up the hose and aimed it at the mountain. The engineer aimed the hose at the mountain, and shot a stream of water up on the mountain and it put out some of the fire! He aimed it carefully five or six more times and managed to hit enough of the fire that the conflagration was ended!

    A young child ran up to the engineer and said the river was completely dry! The engineer explained about the water coming back, and just as he finished, small waterfalls appeared at the mountain’s base, sending the water back into the river.

    Now, everything we back to normal, it seemed. Except the miners panning the river for gold just weren’t finding gold anymore. It was all gone. It was a hard winter for the panners, who had to join the miners in the mine. But when fall came around and the trees on the mountain started getting ready for winter, some of them changed color! There were hundreds of these trees, right where the water had been sprayed! The engineer climbed the mountain to see what had happened, and it turned out that when the needles fall of those trees that had been hit with water, there was gold on all of the branches!

    The hose had sucked up the river water, but also the gold dust in the water. It stuck to the trees when the water went back down the mountain, and it wasn’t until those trees lost their needles that the gold showed itself.

    For every mountain except the one by Flaxton, those were Larch trees, which turned yellow and dropped their needles. But in Flaxton it was gold!

    Something like that. I miss telling those.

    Wallace Idaho, a magical place

    One of my thoughts today was about wanting to scare goats into fainting. And a complaint a day or two ago was the fact that the Geographic Center of the Nation was bogus. I did wonder about where the geographic center of the world was, but clearly I wasn’t thinking big enough. Also, I’ve been going on and on about mountains, and all I wanted was to be nestled in them. Surrounded and kept safe from storm and harm.

    So the end of the day comes and I check into my amazing Stardust Motel in Wallace Idaho. I didn’t know it at the time, but now I knew it is truly a magical town. The motel is perfect. Supremely styled in a retro fashion, but comfortable and modern enough not to suck. They were having a Halloween thing in the parking lot next door. It looked like fun. And this little town is surrounded by really tall hillmountains!

    After some debate about the worthiness of half a Subway from lunch, I decided to go out and get dinner. My research brought be two surprises.

    First – Wallace Idaho is the center of the universe. Mayor decreed it. Got a picture of the sign and everything. So that’s the true and proper center of something.

    Second – the restaurant I found for dinner? The fainting goat! That’s it! This might be my new favorite town!

    I feel quite nestled.

    Deets

    • License Plates: AL, AZ, CA, ID, KS, NC, SC, TN, WA, Quebec
    • States: MT, ID
    • Departed: 7:37 am MDT, 28 degrees
    • Original ETA 2:26pm MDT, but in PDT so 1:26pm
    • Arrival: 3:00 pm PDT
    • Weather: Massive blue skies turned cloudy, rainy after retiring to my room
    • Budget: Food below, Hotel below
    • Food: Latte, Latte, Grapefruitade (more in another post), Subway, Buffalo wings
    • Music: Bis – Return to Central, 07 – Simple Things, Massive attack – Heligoland, Thomas Dolby – The Flat Earth, Henryk Górecki – The Symphony No. 3, Op. 36, / the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs

    Observations

    • The downside to not knowing what day it is – it makes “days of the week” pill boxes hard
    • At rest stop an old guy gave Rocinante the stinkeye. Jealous, to be sure.
    • That rest stop had individual restrooms – but they looked like a jail cell tho
    • Individual restrooms are better than standing next to some trucker farting
    • I keep seeing black billed magpies, very pretty – black and white sharply contrasting
    • There was a sign warning about wind gusts that had a for real airport grade windsock attached
    • A sign saying tire studs allowed through May 31 – doesn’t that jack up the road though?
    • I missed crossing 1,000 miles.
    • The longest distance between two navigational directions so far: 286 mi
    • Wrinkle in the 80 mph speed limit – in MT trucks are limited to 70 mph, so easy to pass. Very few elephant races.
    • Crossed the continental divide
    • Butte cut down a whole mountain copper mining.
    • Ate lunch at a lovely rest stop while looking at mountains
    • How frustrating must it be to be a trucker and have cars constantly passing you?
    • How many invisible cars have I accidentally run off the road?
    • Early in the day I saw a bunch of trees with fall colors, but I cant remember seeing any until now
    • When I see a crowd of goats I want to honk to see if they’ll faint.
    • Windshields block reality. I opened my window for a while and the view became so much more 3D and vivid.
    • MT has official roadside crosses.. They have a red metal post and a white cross. I saw one with a name, and another instance where there were three on the same post.
    • Furkot (nav software) knew I wanted my drive to be 9am-3pm. But it figured in the time change. So instead of 6 hours I got 7. I didn’t want more! Although when I’m going west to east it’ll be the opposite.
    • I feel like I’m with someone. “When we get to the hotel” or “Where are we going for dinner.” Sometimes my companion isn’t anyone in particular, other times it’s a friend or family member. It’s nice to feel that.
    • Why do trees grow straight up, and not perpendicular to the surface?

    Pictures

    It’s the mountain above Flaxton – can you see the streaks?
    On the left there – those look like Tetons to me, but I know the grand ones are nowhere near here
    Twisties! Exactly what we want to see!
    She’s so cute! I’m sure that’s how the truckers refer to her as we whip on by..
    Yup. There it is. Missouri. Beginning.
    This is Wallace, finely nestled
    Twisties at 80mph

  • Not Hills

  • Sometimes you have to go northeast to go west. 10/30 (3)

    Sometimes you have to go northeast to go west. 10/30 (3)

    In order to cut across Montana on some more interesting roads, I had to go north a bit. When I realized I had to go northeast for a while, it made me worry for a moment that I was disrespecting “go west until I find an ocean” but honestly, that’s just silly. But I thought it, and it seemed like a fun title. The drive today was less exciting than previous days. First of all, the highlight was Custer’s National Monument, but it was closed. Payback for the free admission to Badlands and Devil’s Tower. It was a lot of driving through the rolling hills. Remember when I talked about thinking the mountains would just be flatlands and then mountains, like a wall? I’m thinking that may actually be the case.

    I went over passes that required chains for trucks in the winter, and had pulloffs for putting them on and taking them off. There are passing lanes for trucks lumbering up the hill. They go up up up and then down down down but don’t really look like a mountain. So were they? Really want to know I drove over a mountain. Tomorrow I will go over a 6,000 foot pass, so I’m guessing that’s my chance.

    I’ve been seeing these dark blue hilly or mountainous shapes on the horizon. Extremely Significant Hills. Finally near the end of the day I saw one with considerable snow cover. I’m calling that a mountain! Looking at the map that could have been moderately close, or Wyoming.

    There is so much exposed geology here, it’s deafening. If we had one of these rock outcroppings or a cliff, even just 20 feet high, we would have named it, built a state park around it, and turned it into a state symbol. In Montana that’s just called land. Something about taking for granted the things you have around.

    As excited as I am for the mountains, it’s hard not to be awed by these vast plains. They go on and on and on right to the horizon where those blue hills show up like they’re something in a video game you haven’t unlocked yet.

    As I cross these prairies I can’t help but think of people in Model T’s crossing the land a hundred years ago. Or the pioneers walking next to a covered wagon watching out for prairie dog holes so nobody (or horse) breaks a leg. And the Native Americans crossing the land, or just being in the middle of that sea of earthen waves. I feel like that would be less lonely and overwhelmed and more about being impressed and respectful of the land. Seeing the Devil’s Tower rise out of nothing, just a chunk of land had to be awe inspiring. In any of those cases, it’s so easy to think of the hardships they faced. And who is going to look back on us? What are our hardships?

    It was a long and repetitive day, but I was entranced by those hills. But seeing a set of hills with a forest newly burnt, I was impressed by nature’s resiliency. But that moment, without a picture or a note about it, would likely be forgotten. Obviously in this case I created a note to remember the idea. But so many of those moments or beauty show up and disappear so fast, and they are fleeting in my mind as well. So I’m working hard to enjoy them, but really enjoy them. Take them in as hard as I can, and appreciate them. More mindfulness, it seems.

    Tomorrow: Headwaters of the Missouri, Bozeman to take a picture of the high school and send it out of context to a friend who grew up there, and Idaho. And mountains?

    Hey not to be that guy, but there is a way to subscribe to these posts, so when a new one shows up you get an email or whatever.. It’s not a number I’m trying to build or anything, just offering something that makes it easier to follow new stuff. And thanks for reading! I write this for me, but also for you.

    Deets

    • License Plates: ND, Ontario
    • States: WY, MT
    • Departed: 8:56 am MDT, 32 degrees, Massive blue skies
    • Original ETA 2:00 MDT
    • Arrival: 5:00pm MDT
    • Weather: Bitter cold in morning with wind, warmed up to 56, Big Sky country indeed. All blue
    • Budget: Gas TBD, Food below, Hotel below
    • Food: breakfast latte but the lid wouldn’t stay on, lunch missed, dinner was a particular fast food I won’t see again for many states
    • Music: Classic Rock playlist, Dire Straits – Brothers in arms, then just a queue based on that.

    Snippets

    • It was 32 and windy at Devil’s Tower and two climbers were heading up to climb. No idea how they’re going to do that.
    • Hey! It’s Rocinante’s (my car) birthday!
    • Devil’s tower was as impressive as I thought it would be. More humbling geology
    • At the base of the tower is a prairie dog village and it was immense. Also, they chirp
    • A large bird flew over the prairie dog village, or rather the very large bird feeding ground
    • For as much as I bitched about Bison in South Dakota, there were none in WY, so yeah
    • Montana had something called “Roadside tables” that appeared to be a wayside, but with.. tables?
    • Custer’s battlefield was closed due to shutdown, road entrance and all
    • Stopped in Hardin for a Latte and Therapy sitting in my car at Custer city park. I feel like I was being trolled by the police. They passed by a lot of times.
    • Another tumbleweed
    • Have not seen (any?) motorcycles, even around Sturgis.
    • Have not seen much political stuff anywhere

    Pictures

    Devil’s Tower
    Devil’s Tower
    Majestic
    It just pops up out of nowhere
    Much of my day
    A huge prairie dog village
    They chirp. A lot.
    A bit of my drive

    Majestic

  • Wickedly Bad Lands. 10/29 (2)

    Wickedly Bad Lands. 10/29 (2)

    It was a day. Short drive, but long in interesting stuff. I woke up seriously early and thought I could just get on with it and have time at the end of the day. Which was great, as I needed the afternoon nap more than I needed a snooze bar in the morning. Tomorrow I have some weird timing getting to Devil’s Tower and getting to the gift shop when it opens. But in the end I’ll be in Billings. Maybe I’ll check out the pictograph caves.

    Badlands

    I thought the day looked boring, so in looking for diversions I noticed a badlands loop that looked twisty and not too far off the original path. Turns out it was a National Park, so it was free – though all the buildings were closed, and I counted only one ranger in the whole park. He was manning a speedtrap. The lack of visitors meant I saw few cars, and at no point was I following a lumbering RV down a twisty road, cursing their existence. Today, I merely drank in the curves and enjoyed the drive and the views. I have a note that “sometimes twisties don’t mean fast” and I think it means curvy roads are fun to go stupid fast on – but really only when you’re in the movies.

    Another note: “The badlands are so quiet and peaceful and beautiful they make me want to throw up. And not in a bad way.” It was a strange thought following an even stranger feeling. It was just overwhelming enough that I wanted to express my happiness in a way without words or actions. Don’t worry, I didn’t hurl. But I was struck by the quiet. I even recorded some of it. It sounds like absolutely nothing. No highway buzz, no running engine, not even birds or bugs. Just vibrant silence. I think I appreciated not only the silence, but the age. Those rocks have been blowing up and eroding and wearing down and dusting for so very long. They don’t care about you or me or politicians or Netflix original series. They don’t care about anything. They’re just there and they will be there long after we’re gone, no matter how that happens.

    My dad would go on and on about glaciers and moraine and ancient lakes. We would groan and try and tune him out. Of course I wish I had paid more attention, but no teen would have. I can’t remember hearing him talk about the badlands but I really wish I had the opportunity to go there with him. I would listen to every. single. word.

    Geography

    Flat on a map does not do bumpy in real life justice. I didn’t have any assumptions about when I would see mountains, for some reason I thought I would drive across the flat prairie and there they would be. Walls of mountains from one end to the other. Driving into them would be like entering MIrkwood. You would go from one to the other and that’s it.

    Apparently that’s not how it happens. Granted, I haven’t seen mountains yet, but I think it’s going to be interesting and surprising in its lack of being surprising, if that makes sense. In Rapid City there were really big hills in the distance, but they didn’t look like mountains. Over the course of the day I would be driving past rolling hills, then moonscape like badlands, more hills that made me wonder about mountains, and then when I cross the border into Wyoming something happened. They were still hills around me. The kind of thing that farmer could walk to the top of and have a nice view. But they got bigger and closer. More frequent. And then less convincing that you could just walk to the top of them. (I have this thing where I want to climb to the top of every hill I see, though I seldom do. Just to see what you could see.)

    So I am quite excited for tomorrow and beyond.

    The bullshit geographic center of the U.S.

    What the actual fuck. So, no it’s not what you think. It’s not the center of the lower 48. It’s the center of the nation. Meaning it includes Hawaii and Alaska. Or.. wait.. no? Now I’m reading on the page on wikipedia that it might have something to do with demographic information?

    At the very least, we know that Lebanon Kansas is the center of the lower 48. I can buy that, looks about right. If you add Alaska to the equation it seems like it should be a lot further north than South Dakota. And Hawaii? That’s my main issue. We measure the middle of the space that includes all 50 states. But Hawaii is a quarter of the planet away. How does that stretch to South Dakota?

    Ok, fine, maybe I’m a moron. Maybe this is the right place. All of the signs that led me to this monument (and there were many) got me to this town in the middle of nowhere. I was so excited to stand on the marker on the ground (like the 4 corners in the SE US) and say I was in the middle of it all. SO exciting. So when I get there and find out the ACTUAL point it a twenty miles north, likely on private land, I just about lost my shit! Frankly that’s false advertising, and bogus and irresponsible.

    Deets

    • License Plates: ME, MT, Alberta, OR, MD, WY
    • States: SD,WY
    • Departed: 7:30am CDT, 22 degrees, mostly sunny skies
    • Original ETA 12:21 MDT
    • Arrival: 2:00pm MDT, napped a bit
    • Weather: Cold, mostly sunny
    • Budget: Gas TBD, Food below, Hotel below
    • Food: breakfast latte great, lunch gyro delicious, dinner Reuben fair (coleslaw was so sour it tasted carbonated.) Fries were decent though.
    • Music: Radiohead – Kid Amnesia, Crystal Method – Tweekend, Crystal Method – The Trip Home (I see what I did there), and I switched to radio near the end of the day, just for variety. In the badlands I went with silence, as it seemed appropriate

    Snippets

    • This is not the shoulder season, it’s more like the armpit season. Between the shutdown closing National places, and the off-season November month, I’m strolling through places uncrowded and driving unblocked by RVs. Bliss
    • It still awes me when I see the gates on the interstate, and the signs talking about the road being closed in inclement weather. They’re everywhere out here.
    • There’s a crop that looks like something half the height corn, tan on the bottom and maroon or brown on top. Looked it up, it’s sorghum. And there’s lots of it in South Dakota
    • I’m going the speed limit and I’m the fastest car on the road. I’m even using google maps to GPS my speed. Is it just that everyone here obeys the speed limit? And by here I mean everywhere but Minnesota?
    • Saw my first tumbleweed! It tumbled across the highway in front of me.
    • There has been a lot of construction-like activity. Speed will drop from 80 to 65, down to one lane, maybe see some construction vehicles, then eventually it goes back to 80 and two lanes. I think I’ve done that exercise a dozen times by now.
    • Wall Drug
      • Of course I went there.
      • I needed two very common personal items one would get at a drug store. They didn’t have either. I had to go to Target. Everybody at Wall Drug seemed nice, no crowds, no wait for purchase, mostly just empty.
    • Somewhere in there we switched to the Mountain time zone.
    • In Wyoming the signs announcing a nearby historical marker have the title of the marker listed below. So you know if it’s something you want to see or something about a vice president 50 years ago.
    • I really wanted to see some bison. I finally saw three or four in South Dakota, but that was it. I saw more deer in Wyoming than bison in South Dakota.

    Reasons to visit our tourist trap

    • As seen on American Pickers
    • As seen on Pawn Stars
    • As seen on the Discovery Channel
    • As seen on Star Trek
    • Rachel Ray loves us!
    • Written up in New York Times
    • As told by the New York Times
    • Dances with Wolves movie props
    • Dances with wolves (again)
    • Dances with Wolves movie set
    • Custer battlefield artifacts
    • Original General Lee car

    Amusing billboards

    • Mexican food so good Trump would build a wall around it
    • Exercise makes you look better naked. So does tequila
    • In wine there is Wisdom. In water there is bacteria.
    • We’re like a cult but with better kool-aid

    Pictures

    I had to get out my ice scraper. Too much frost for me to even just run the heater and use the wiper wash.
    This is an odd one. It looks like a sunset. But it was in the morning. And on the wrong side of the sky. Strange.
    Why yes, that does say 22 degrees.
    More snakey snakey goodness. Didn’t see any though.
    If you look off on the right in the distance, you can see Devil’s Tower!

    Badlands

    They just go on forever
    It’s like the surface of the moon
    I met a little bunny. This is about 20 yards from the parking lot. There just weren’t any other people around.
    Here my bunny friend (we’ll call him Harvey) looks for his friends, Watership Down style
    Endless
    Just keep going. Imagine getting lost in there.
    Layers of so much time we weren’t involved in.
  • I don’t know where this ends. I just know it’s time to begin. 10/28 (1)

    I don’t know where this ends. I just know it’s time to begin. 10/28 (1)

    I said when I left my job I was going to get in my car and drive west until I found an ocean. Today I got in my car. I’ll be posting frequently, as this trip is actually considered therapy by my care team, and it’s all about reflection. Itineraries have been emailed to a friend, with contact info all around. You’ll just have to read to find out where else I end up. Enjoy! Hit the about link to the left for background.

    It was a simple day. Started off familiar, as it was my home state and I had just run a test drive that way last week.

    While it was rainy, it was still exciting. No hope for the top down as it was 42 to start and peaked at 55 or 51 or something. There will be plenty of opportunities in the future.

    One of my snippets below is about beginning to realize the ocean is very very far away. On one hand it really is, and this is going to be a long week getting there. But on the other hand, it’s just down the road, left turn before Seattle and I’m there.

    I feel like going somewhere humbles it. Disney Parks are magical until you’ve been there. They’re still great, but once you’ve been you’ve spent a lot of the magic. So I’m hoping this trip humbles not only myself, but the country I live in somehow. And the distances between the interesting bits.

    Haven’t felt the depression today and just a bit of anxiety. Not much for me but might kill a normal person. 🙂 I attribute these things to the excitement of the first day. But I’m almost willing to own it, which is a crazy thought. I had a few times where I thought this was stupid and I should just go or stay home. I guess I just waited them out and kept going, not bad advice for life in some cases.

    When I crested the hill and saw the Missouri river, the rolling hills, and the blue sky and clouds it was probably my first WOW moment. No doubts on the trip anymore.

    Tomorrow is a tiny bit shorter, but with prettier scenery and what I understand is a Very Large drug store. I get to see Devil’s tower! Very very excited for that one!

    Author’s note: I think I’ll be able to use this as a template for future days posts, which should make things easier. I’m already pretty adept at integrating the photos from google photos, so it’ll take less time in the future. Also, if you’re reading this in 2028 and the photos don’t work, it’s because google unlinked them. Or went under.

    Deets

    • License Plates: WI, VA, IN, IA, NE, USG, SD, OH, MI, CO, TX, PA, OK, GA
    • States: MN, SD
    • Departed: 9am CDT, 42 degrees, scattered rain. (turned into actual rain quickly)
    • Original ETA 2:53pm CDT
    • Arrival: 4:00pm CDT, 50 degrees and partly cloudy with the most amazing clouds ever
    • Weather: Rainy morning ranging from drizzle to downpour. Rain stopped at the SD border.
    • Budget: Gas TBD, Food above, Hotel below
    • Food: breakfast latte great, lunch BLT delicious, dinner burger tasted like Mom made it. Not a good thing. Fries were decent though.

    Snippets

    • A giant bald eagle swooped onto the road trying to get to some carrion, but flew off when I approached. I had to swerve to miss it, but the wingspan was almost the width of the road. Amazing!
    • I started to catch wind on I90 in Minnesota. Nothing horrible, but definately an active driving situation
    • By the time I got to South Dakota I felt like I was driving a curve to the right, compensating for the heavy wind.
    • South Dakota
      • I can totally get behind the 80 mph speed limit
      • Apparently I’m the only one
      • I feel like the trip has really started
      • What is Wall Drug’s annual marketing budget?
    • I have a fear of trucks losing cargo on me, and one lost an ATV door as I was about to pass him. Thankfully it flew like a kite over the shoulder. Still, fear confirmed!
    • Halfway into the first day and I can’t remember the Day of week
    • The more I drive the more I’m beginning to think the ocean is really far away
    • The top of my car (ragtop) feels like a horses hide, which really works nicely with the Rocinante name.
    • Stopped in St. Peter for coffee and bathroom break, a regular latte seemed like a custom order because it wasn’t one of their special drinks

    Pictures

    Pictures here

    Welcome to my morning
    I wanted to stop / hotel here because it’s the Missouri river, which is cool. But also because this is one of the places Lew and Clark stopped on their trip upriver. There’s a cool museum and everything talking about the voyage. Which apparently has a season. Boo hoo!
    I was very excited to see this sign! On one hand, it’s crazy that one could run across one of them in the wild. On the other hand tasty tasty death danger! (Low SI day except here and once crossing the river.)
    I’m sure it’ll happen again, but I was shocked (SHOCKED!) at the hills and how not flat they were. That’s also the river right there, which of course is super cool even if it thinks it’s the longest river in North America. (It’s not.)
    This is the second bridge over the river in these towns. It was fun to drive across (twice!) and pretend I was Rain Main. Also, it’s a widely held belief that Lewis and Clark stopped in this area because this bridge and the Interstate 90 bridge both made it easier to get across the river,