After dodging the wildlife last night it was straight to the
Super 8 at Bowman, North Dakota sustained only by “van snacks”, basically the
remnants of various truck stop purchases, some granola bars, crisps and
chocolate. Not the most healthy fare but it has calories. There was no prospect
of anywhere a) being open or b) actually existing where we could eat. The lady
who was running the hotel (by herself BTW) was fairly disparaging, “anywhere to
get breakfast tomorrow?” was met with a resounding “NO”.
This Super 8 has seen better days, clean but a bit
threadbare, but the worst, most frustrating issue was the Wi-Fi – it was so
2006. When I eventually got the laptop connected it sustained a connection for
about a minute with bytes flowing on geographical timescales. After several
attempts of playing the Wi-Fi equivalent of Wack-A-Mole I get two days of text
published but there is no way any photos are going to be seen by anyone anytime
soon. Irritation City Arizona. I load photos from two cameras onto an SSD hard
drive – that’s the easy bit. The total pain in the @rse is getting photos off
both Alex’s and my iPhones. Nothing will work so I resort to emailing them to
myself in batches of 5, downloading them to the SSD whenever I can connect the
laptop to Wi-Fi. I then have to pick out a selection from the four sources and
add them to a new folder. In an ideal 2022 world I’d then sort them by date
having carefully time synced the cameras before I left Blighty, but Windows 7
is half a generation old and can’t cope. So to ensure they are all published in
chronological order I have to manually rename them 1,2,3 etc. then it’s Ctrl A
to select them from the blog, then upload them in the correct order then…they then
publish in the REVERSE order and I have to start again as otherwise it would
look STUPID. Highlighting number 1 then shift click on the last one is the way
to go. All done after 16 hours in the back of a van, tired and my temper
frayed.
The lady at the Super 8 recommended the No. 3 Saloon in
Buffalo which is on our route south on US85 in the far north west of South
Dakota. Despite it being Sunday it’s open. Alex and I order two Signature
breakfasts with bacon. It’s very good. The No. 3 has a number of dartboards,
Alex demonstrates his prowess with the arrows by sending a dart towards the
bullseye…and hits treble 9. I have more change and $1 bills than you can shake
a stick at; I get rid of some $1 but am too embarrassed to pay for the rest in
quarters. You can sign a dollar bill and staple it to the wall though I’m not
entirely sure why. I’ll continue to walk round in circles for a while yet such
is the jangling mass of coins in my right shorts pocket, anymore and it will
soon possess its own event horizon, sucking all available matter into my
shorts.
We’re back on the road and heading to Belle Fourche which is
north of Spearfish. I didn’t get round to asking why, I’ll find out when we get
there. Spearfish is not that far from Deadwood. Yesterday, as we sped through
Montana, to our west was the memorial to the Battle of the Little Big Horn
where Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse et al wiped out the 7th Cavalry. As
I mention Custer’s Last Stand to Alex he stares back blankly. “Never heard of
it”. I look back at him in consternation. His mam will be writing to his old
school to complain about his abysmal education. She’s quite good at that sort
of thing to be fair. He gets a chance to redeem himself: “Who was shot dead in
Deadwood while supposedly holding a poker hand of a pair of black twos and
eights that became known as the Deadman’s Hand?”…”Er, Wild Bill?”…A remarkable,
face saving turnaround, where did he pluck that one from...?
We stop at Belle Fourche for a toilet break. There’s an
“only in the US of A” moment in the gents which gets air dropped to Cindy for her
hypothetical blog on the “Restrooms of the USA”. The now filthy Yukon gets a
power wash and is now nice and fresh.
We drive to Spearfish and up the trail into the Black Hills,
stop at Bridal Veil Falls for some snaps, then find a picnic spot. There’s a
mountain goat and a mule deer grazing at the side of the road; I’ve seen more
wildlife on this trip than the rest put together. We do an about turn, back
through Spearfish and head north west on the US212 into the north east of
Wyoming.
So to the weather: the SPC has issued an enhanced forecast
with a 5% tornado risk for western South Dakota, north eastern Wyoming and
south eastern Montana. We are now right in the north east corner of Wyoming and
there is a severe warned storm directly to our west. There are a number of
chasers out including a mobile mesonet and a dopplar radar truck. It’s now
15:15.
We continue north east to Alzada then head south on the
Montana 112 towards Hulett overtaking a huge Dopplar on Wheels radar truck as
we do so. We’re getting in a good position but we’re in the Black Hills which
makes seeing the storm problematic to see with hills and trees everywhere. We
find a spot and have a two minute photo stop. Wow this storm is intense, not
only that it has Devil’s Mount in the background, famous for the place in Close
Encounters of the Third Kind where the alien spaceship lands. Way cool. There’s
a 150 knot rotation marker in this storm, and despite the continual cell signal
voids there must be a tornado in there somewhere. Sure enough as soon as the
mobile signal returns the storm becomes tornado warned. Boom!
We head from Hulett to Aladdin then pick up the I90
interstate going east stopping to watch this amazing storm wash over Bear Butte
with intense “greenage” a sure sign of a massive hail core. Sure enough radar
indicates 4” hail. Incredible, that would really ruin your day, and sure enough
as we go into Sturgis there is a larger camper van with its windows smashed.
There are lots of chasers out now including the ubiquitous white vans of a
chase tour company. We overtake a four van convoy of Silverlining Tours.
We continue south on the I90 which then turns east at Rapid
City. The original storm loses its shape but a whole pile of new storms erupt
overhead and quickly become severe warned. We charge east to catch up, these
storms are shifting across the Plains, the topography now having been
transformed into a flat chaser friendly landscape in contrast to earlier in the
day. It’s now 19:00.
We catch up with a new storm as it parallels the I90
barrelling eastwards to our north. We get ahead of it, stop for photos, drive
off and repeat the process stopping in Wall. We’re staying in Murdo, South
Dakota tonight which is over an hour away down the Interstate. Suddenly it
becomes tornado warned with Tornado Vortex Signatures (TVS) appearing on the
radar and rotation marker of 103 knots. Lightning is flashing lighting up the storm’s
base showing a clearly defined wall cloud. A volunteer fireman calls in a
tornado and 3.75” hail is marked on the radar. I scan it constantly in the
gloom for any sign of a lowering but see none.
We sit in the Yukon under the roof of the gas station in
Murdo with our hotel in sight. As well as a tornado warning there might be
large hail that could damage the vehicle. We chat to a guy called Jeremy who
has a 1900cc Indian motorcycle who has parked it next to us. The lightning
starts, the display is incredible with flashes faster than you can count them.
We get in the vehicle to avoid the coming rain…then a tornado siren starts up…everyone
in their cars, including us scurries into the garage. The rain becomes
torrential, everyone’s phones are blaring with the National Weather Service tornado
alerts as the siren continues. Hairs on the back of your neck stand to
attention…Perhaps Alex is having second thoughts on this storm chasing malarkey.
Eventually the siren stops and the rain
eases off so we make good our escape and check in to the Super 8.
Wow, what a day to finish the tour on, one I and Alex will
never forget. Oh, and we scored a six pack of Stella Artois which I am drinking
right now.
Total Miles: 499
