Date: 20 May 2001 (Sunday)

Start: Municipal Park, Pierre SD

End: Miles City MT KOA (411 miles)

This was a long day.

We heard on the morning news that the front was approaching Pierre and that after it passed, there would be really stiff winds from the northwest.

Before we cleared the campground, the winds had picked up to the point a jacket was required (at 60f).

We cleared Pierre going north on US83 to Sibley SD, then west from there on US12. There were several lines of rain squalls, all brief and not very intense, mixed with some breaks with sun. But always the wind.

As we approached Lemmon SD, where we thought we would stay at Shadehill Reservoir, we realized that staying in the country in harsh winds only to face them again the next day wasn’t too smart. So we decided to make it all the way to Miles City MT and hope we’d be on the other side of the weather the next day.

So we banged along into the wind, getting about 8 mpg instead of our usual 11.5 and were continually buffeted.

The land changed as we went. In SD, it was still rolling treeless prairie. In the southwest corner of North Dakota we went through, it turned into a sandy, eroded, badlands type of surface with nearly no crops but some oil wells and natural gas tanks and one coal mine. These continued over into Montana, but then the terrain changed into sandstone buttes on the high ground and sharp valleys with eroded features in the low ground.

After we set up camp and turned on the TV, we found Miles City was getting continuous winds of 32mph with gusts to 47mph.

It will be cold tonight, they say, down around 34f. Tomorrow, the wind is supposed to lessen (10-20mph) and the temps will get into the mid-60’s. We’ll see.