Today was day four of my excursion out west. So far I have travelled throught the Lowe and upper penninulas of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and I'm currently halfway through South Dakota.
I cant't believe I spent as much time in Michigan as I did. The UP is way longer than I anticipated. It might as well be another state all on it's own. I ended up camping twice in Michigan, once in the LP and once in the UP. I think one of my favorite parts of the trip so far was travelling along Lake Michigan after crossing the Mackinac bridge. The sand dunes are huge and the highway runs right along side of it. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and the water was really blue.
Yesterday I caught a little border fever in Minnesota and rode too long trying to get to North Dakota. I went through Detroit Lakes, MN after dusk and was trying desperately to find a campsite. Day light ran out and as I was getting further south there was an ominus lightning storm that I was headed into. I decided that it would be in my best interest to return to Detroit Lakes and get a hotel for the night. It was a cheap hotel and they should've provided a mosquito net for the bed because there were more mosquitos in the room than there were the previous night camping.
When I awoke on Saturday it had stormed all night and everything was wet. The sky was still really dark too and as I pulled out it started raining. So with my raingear on, I made my way to North Dakota and was there quite briefly on my way to South Dakota.
South Dakota has been surprisingly large. I guess I just underestimate the actual size of the states because I thought I'd be much closer to Mount Rushmore by now. When I entered SD, I stopped at the welcome center. Janice was the kind old lady working the information booth and as soon as I walked up to her she handed me a brochure about motorcycling South Dakota. She also gave me some invaluable information on camping too. It's a good thing that she did too. The campground I wanted to stay at has been closed due to floooding. So I located an alternative and made reservations at one of my frequent rest stops. I am staying at the West Bend Recreatinal area tonight. I pulled in with about an hour of usable sunlight left. I quickly got my gear set up and made myself a dinner of Ramen noodles. I made it thought the day today spending less than $6 excluding gas. The primitive sites at West Bend are separated from the electric sites by about a half mile walk. Guess where the showers are. I wasn't even going to attempt sleeping tonight without a shower after being cooped up in my rain gear for ca long today, so after dinner I made the trek up to the electic site showers. Words can not convey how gorgeous the starlit cloudless sky was. I know it's cliche' but with no light pollution it really looked like someone just put a collander over the globe and shined a light on top of it. Millions of pinpricks of light flooded the night time sky. It was worth the walk just for that.
One more quick note, there was a birdstrike on thw way to the campsite tonight. Crossing SD can be desolate at times and with that desolation comes an abundance of wildlife on the roads (especially birds). Well, one finally hit me tonight. About a dozen of them scattered off of the road in front of me and unfortunately for one of them, it wasn't quick enough and right right into my left knuckle. Poor guy.
So if all goes well, I should make it to Mt. Rushmore tomorrow. It's about 250 miles from where I am now.
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