Murdo, South Dakota to Ashland, Wisconsin

May 19, 2013
Surprisingly, it was a lovely spring morning after the first cloudy and chilly hour.

I stayed on I90 through eastern South Dakota into Minnesota, stopping at the Missouri River at Chamberlain, SD. There was little traffic, it being Sunday morning, and more soft blue skies and greening field and watery places with a few ducks in each one. I stopped to seek out a Starbucks in Chamberlain, but "none found within 100 miles," so I walked a quarter-mile trail overlooking the river, noting a sign at the begining "Beware of Poisonous Snakes." It was certainly not the first thing I would have thought would be around here, as it was verdant and cool and sunny and park-like.

But, as I went over near the artistic concrete tepee structure (a dozen or so huge square poles arranged in a tepee shape), I saw a LARGE snake not far from the path.

I headed north on secondary roads soon after getting into Minnesota and spent the afternoon moving north and east towards Duluth, and passed through Olivia, Minnesota. I took a picture and send it to her and she responded immediately that this was "cool" and that she was "going to live there when I grow up."

Bad weather began again, and again there were weather advisories and darkening skies. The announcer would list about 20 counties and towns and half the time I had no idea what county I was in.

It was darkening rapidly by the time I drove through Duluth and suddenly, as I came down off the high bridges onto US2 and was braking, my car sounded horrible. But only at very low speeds, like 5 to 10 miles per hour, and only after braking and starting up again. At first I tried to convince myself that the significant wind which was hitting the car was responsible but knew that was a delusion. Still, I continued on for an hour since the noise didn't seem to happen when braking at higher speeds and, besides, I wasn't braking much. The weather got worse and worse. I didn't know if it was dark because of the storms or natural daylight subsidence. There was significant lightning in the skies ahead and lots of rain and wind and I don't see all that well while driving at night and I was tired, BBB.

Of course, in Ashland, the horrid noise was very much evident as I had to brake at lights. I headed for the Best Western which I remembered from previous trips through here and which is impressive with several stories and on Lake Superior. At this pont I didn't care what it cost but the rooms were still reasonable (off-season rates yet) so I parked and got a few things out of the car in a driving rain. I think this particular Best Western was originally a Chatuaqua hotel type of lodging and is certainly much more expensive in the summer months. I was dressed totally inappropriately with flip-flops, etc. but the room was as nice as motel rooms get and I decided I would worry about the car in the morning.