Crossing state lines...

The wind tried, but it couldn't hold us back. We have officially made it to Montana. But North Dakota sent us out with a giant farewell.
We took a break from our 900 on miles on Route 2 to take a scenic detour. Saturday was a beautiful day and we road a quick 70 miles to Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, the badlands. For the last 15 miles of the ride, we had a great tailwind, gradual uphills and delightful downhills. The park was filled with Bison and Longhorns for our picture taking pleasure. On the way to our campsite I had a brief hold up, as a herd of Bison crossed the road in front of me, a new Bike and Build experience.
After helping to unload the trailer and set up tents, I put new batteries in my camera and headed out to explore the park. It was a gorgeous 4 mile climb to the top of the ridge. The mountains revealed the mineral banding of geological history. The top provided a gorgeous view of the Missouri River Valley (near the headwaters). After dinner I climbed back up to watch the last of the sunset. At dusk the deer were playing, which made for a fun ride down in the dark.
When I got back, it was definitely time for bed. Since it was a beautiful night, there was only a 20% chance of rain, and all of the tents already had sleeping people in them, I decided to sleep under the tarp that had been strung up for shade between two trees. Sean also joined me to enjoy sleeping under the stars. We were soon joined by Lindsey and Anson, who had decided that their tent was too warm. Thank goodness Lindsey joined us.
The evening started out wonderfully. It was a beautiful night to sleep outside. I was woken up by a couple of wind gusts, since the tarp had been strung up for shade, not protection from the elements, and it was getting blown around. But all was well. It drizzled a little around 11:30, but we had safely tucked all of our stuff under the tarp, so no worries. Around 2 am I woke up again, to find Anson, Lindsey, and Sean moving around and all of our bags gone. I had slept through their attempts to wake me up. Lightening in the distance promised a strong storm in the making.
They had already gotten all of the bags away, but I was able to help pick up loose things around the campsite and move all of our bikes into the semi-shelter provided by the bathrooms. After everything was secured, and at least partially protected from the coming rain, we decided to watch the light show. The lightening was spectacular. As the rain began to set in, we helped people re-secure their rain flaps before taking shelter in the bathroom. At the time, I was a little jealous of the people in tents, they didn't have to get up for the storm. We had hidden all of our sleeping stuff and a dry tarp in the bathroom so we could go back to sleeping outside after the storm. As we watched, the rain got harder, the wind got stronger.
I should probably mention at this time, that not all of the tents had the right poles and the ones that did have stakes, didn't have very good one. So these tents, weren't really ready for a storm. And they were blowing around. So far though, they seemed to be holding up. And then the wind got stronger. And then the tree branches started to fall. And the tents began to collapse. And when a ginormous tree branch landed where our bikes had once been, we decided it was time to tell people to give up the fight. We ran into the storm to get everyone into the bathrooms before a tree branch landed on a collapsing tent. Somehow, this concern got turned into people screaming tornado as they struggled to evacuate their collapsing tents.
Soon 25 riders were huddling for warmth in a medium size girls' bathroom. We were getting quite cozy, watching the storm from our shelter. As one by one, the tents were flattened. We were amazed at the one tent in the distance that remained standing, despite the strong wind gusts. We were all a bit jealous of the people who had decided to sleep in the van. They were dry, and not standing room only in a bathroom.
By the time the rain died down, all but one tent was flattened. People were not getting back in those in the wee hours in the morning. So we split up between the two bathrooms, some people went to the van, and we tucked in a good nights sleep. That's right, we leaned against walls, laid on floors, and generally curled up into a giant mass of people in the bathroom.
In the morning, we found our tents surrounded by tree branches. The park ranger arrived with a tarp of ours that he had found a mile away in a tree. All of the tents were now swimming pools, filled with water. Anything left in the tent, was soaked. We were happy to pack up and hit the road (and see more Bison!) Some people were more excited then others to leave (Bobby would have left at 3:30 am if we had let him.... he was not happy).
The 99 miles of riding that day were pretty uneventful. We made it to Montana. We were all happy to arrive in Culbertson, MT, where we stayed in a church and had shelter from the storm. We had to dry out all of the tents, sleeping bags, and clothes that had fallen victim to the storm. For this endeavor, we didn't just use the church lawn, but thankfully everyone on the street let us use their lawns. We took over the town with our wet items. We had a delicious dinner and a delightful, warm, dry sleep.