Broken Little Person Sitting On A Tree Limb

Thursday, 07/20

 

1:00AM (or thereabouts): Storm's a comin' …actually, it's already here. We'd been viewing a rather impressive lightning display ('impressive' translating to: "Oh dear God …duck and cover!!") for the last hour or so, and the weather station we pick up on satellite radio tells us that there are severe thunderstorm warnings (80-mile an hour winds …torrential rain …hail …etc.) and tornado watches for southern Minnesota. Hmmm …coincidentally enough, that's where we are at the time …oh well …best to keep going onward …Huzzah!

 

Shortly thereafter, the 80-mile an hour winds, torrential rain, and hail actually hit. What a grand adventure! Visibility becomes rather non-existent and we navigate by having 3XHAR keep his eyes on the white stripe on the right side of the road while I keep mine on the dotted line in the middle of the road. That, combined with being able to just make out the lights of the car that's in front of us, enables us to keep in our applicable lane and creep along at a senses-stunning speed of 30 miles an hour.

 

After about half an hour or so of this knuckle-clenching, steering wheel in a vise grip fun the weather station we pick up on satellite radio tells us that anyone who is in southern Minnesota and driving on Interstate 90 should pull over and get off the road IMMEDIATELY due to hazardous conditions. Hmmm …coincidentally enough, that's where we are at the time …oh well …best to keep going onward ..Huzzah!

 

We manage to keep going onward for all of about 5 more minutes, at which time some small semblance of sanity (combined with the fact that our pace car has determined that discretion is the better part of valor and pulled off the Interstate) prevails, and we pull over and ride it out beneath an overpass. I'm a bit cranky.

 

2:00AM (or thereabouts): Whew …back on the road we go, and mmmmm …there's nothing like that 'rain fresh, after-the-storm' smell in the air to liven your senses. Unfortunately, the gaseous emissions that continue to be shared by many (or rather, most) of my fellow travelers equates to more of a 'week-old, left out in the sun, salmon that's been eating a steady diet of liverwurst, onions, White Castle hamburgers, and milk for the last month and is wearing used sweat socks' smell. I remain cranky.

 

Oh well …what better way to dispel crankiness than to sing, Sing, SING!!

 

All together now …

 

"High on a hill stood a lonely goatherd,

 

Ladey-yodelayhee-yodelay-hee-oh!

 

What would you give for a girl and goatherd,

 

Ladey-yodelayhee-yodeloh!

 

Yodelayheee …Yodelayheee …Yodelayheee …Yodelayheeheeeee!!

 

Yodelayheeeee …Yodelayheeeee …Yodelayheeeee …Yodelaydee-yodelaydee-yodeloh!!!

 

6:00AM: We hit The Badlands! This translates to our first major picture-taking opportunity (as is illustrated by the fact that each of us with cameras have about 50-100 pictures each of deer and rocks and deer and rocks and deer and rocks. Regardless, it was quite breathtaking and majestic and enabled us to feel a certain level of sympathy for those early settlers who first made the trek west in covered wagons and experienced the groin punch of running into a big, BIG hole in the ground.

 

We spend an hour or so wandering on a trail (and a bit of time wandering off it as well under the premise that if one of us was bit by a rattlesnake it would provide some entertaining stories for down the road). Unfortunately, no rattlesnakes were to be found …only the signs that instructed us to stay on the trails to avoid rattlesnakes. Oh well …maybe next time.

8:30AM: Breakfast at Wall Drug. The variety of bison, deer, antelope, jackelope, etc. stuffed and mounted heads that adorn the walls there are watching our every move. We quickly eat and move on.

 

10:00AM: Mt. Rushmore …more pictures.

 

11:00AM: We move on …only 21 more hours of driving to go …Huzzah!

 

2:00PM: More driving.

 

5:00PM: More driving.

 

8:00PM: More driving.

 

11:00PM: Still more driving.