11 June 2022
Chadron, NE to Sturgis, SD
683 km
I slept ten hours straight! Boy, did I need that. What a difference.
I went for a short walk around the hotel and we met up at 9:30 for a brunch at Love’s Café.
I had the sausage, egg and cheese biscuit.
Didn’t realize the biscuit would be a waffle.
The tea was especially good.
We headed out of Chadron without stopping at the scene of the Great Cell Phone Theft at Walmart in 2019 and headed north into South Dakota with storms expected to initiate in Montana or Wyoming. Being high season for tourists, they booked rooms in Sturgis ahead of time.
We passed through Sturgis but it was too early to check in so we continued west into Wyoming, stopping in Hulett for a grab and go lunch. Bill’s group was in the same town but we never met up.
Both groups left on the road going north into Montana and we were in CB range for most of the rest of the day. We drove northwest towards Broadus and went about twenty miles farther before we found a vantage point to watch two storms initiate to the west. We watched for a good half hour, unsure of which would be the better storm, but they turned out to be very cooperative storms.
We turned back east and the storms again conveniently followed the highway all the way to South Dakota – one on the left and one on the right.
The left storm produced a lot of lightning while the right storm produced amazing structure.
We made a few stops trying to stay ahead of the rain.
At one point, it gave a hint that it wanted to drop a tornado.
By the time we got to South Dakota it was close to sunset and we could barely keep ahead of the fast moving storm.
We beat it to Sturgis and found a spot on the east end of town to watch it pass by.
When we arrived, the wind was cool and very strong. I could barely hold on to one tripod but then the wind just suddenly stopped.
It was surreal.
The storm didn’t produce much more than sheet lightning and we packed up after nine. We tried to go to Taco John’s for a late fast dinner but it had just closed and we ended up a McDonald’s.
Our hotel for the night was the Day’s Inn.
Nice spot but the internet was really bad. Luckily, one of the vans was parked close to my room and their wifi was still on.
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Bill Reid’s entry on 11 June 2022
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