Didn't make it very far today. Got up and pulled out of Chamberlain around 8:30 a.m. An hour-and-a-half later I pulled into Murdo and checked into a Best Western for the day. Reason? Safety stand-down. My turn westward yesterday fortunately brought me north and west of the major weather threats to this area. As I write the Sioux Falls area just 200 miles east of me is under a severe weather alert and had tornadoes touch down last night.
The problem where I am is wind AND rain. The wind has been terrible all morning, blowing steadily at 25 or so mph with gusts to at least 45 mph. That was marginally tolerable, though a couple of times I thought I was going to be blown off the road. It was especially bad whenever crossing a highway overpass bridge. The concrete walls of the bridge would create a wind tunnel effect suddenly redirecting the wind 90° causing it to come in from the left at a 45° angle. The first couple of times this happened really got my attention.
As I pulled adjacent to the town of Murdo the forecasted rain began to fall lightly. At this point I decided if I hit one of those bridges on a rain-slicked road at the same time one of the wind gusts hit it could easily break my traction and pile me into the bridge abutment. That seemed a rather unpleasant thought compared to the excellent mystery I've been reading on this trip so I decided to stand down. So here I am, updating the blog and getting ready to read and relax. I suspect, after this blows through later in the day I'll regret the loss of "miles," but it's the right thing to do.
Did get a couple of pics pulling out of Chamberlain this morning.
The mighty Missouri. Lewis and Clark passed this way.
Note the flags in front of the building. South Dakota wind.
1:30 p.m. update
The downside of such a stop is the lost time on the road...but, then, I had no set schedule to miss. Murphy's Law is prevailing, the light rain that fell has finished felling, I guess. Wind is still very high, but what the hey, I don't read tea leaves.
Went down to the Triple-H Truck Stop, apparently the major business in this town, and caught up on the local news via the Rapid City Journal. Wish I'd have been there yesterday. They had the annual buffalo roundup at the Custer State Park; something on the order of 14,000 people came out to watch volunteers herd about 1,000 buffalo. Looked pretty neat. As the article pointed out, "cows are boring," buffalo ain't. One volunteer reported the "cows are unusually cranky this year," and have been chasing people a lot.
Further in the news is a report from Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin that someone too cheap to buy his own toilet paper has been stealing a lot of it from public bathrooms. According to officials the thefts haven't been a big loss because "We don't buy the best toilet paper." Haven't caught the guy yet...he's obviously still on a roll.
Not in the paper this morning, but when Iranian President Ahmadinejad announced the other day that they had no homosexuals in Iran, the thought that sprang immediately to my mind was, "Have you checked your Senate Cloak room?"
Watched a segment of Christiane Amanpour's report on God's Warriors dealing with Islamic fundamentalists. Couldn't get over the similarity between their complaints against our American (western) society and those of our own Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals. As Tom Russell notes in his latest, 'Who's Going To Build Your Wall,' Islamic, Jewish, and Christian fundamentalist are all willing to blow us up for our own good. A child of the Cold War, Leonid Brezhnev never scared me for a moment. But Jerry Falwell scared the crap outta me.
(Ol' Jerry died a couple of months ago. I can't help but wonder who was most surprised the next morning: him or the devil?)
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