After catching the edge of a very violent storm last night, we woke this morning to blue skies and the welcome sight of the star spangled banner on the flagpole outside the motel pointing due east. Hallelujah! A return to the prevailing W wind direction. 

With nothing much to detain us, except a couple of gas stations, we knocked out the 117 miles in under 6 hours at an average of 20mph. It would have been faster but for the fact that, on the prairie you can only have 2 directions of road, NS or EW. It must be in the constitution or something. Anyway, the 22 miles heading north took us an hour and a half, battling a 30mph cross wind. Here is a classic shot of a vanishing point on these dead straight roads.

  
The main event of the day was a T junction at the end of the northerly leg – the only junction all day. So we stopped for a photo.

 
After some debate we decided to turn right. 

We reached Pierre and crossed the now very wide Missouri at 2.30, only to find that it was actually 3.30 because we have reached Central Time, our 3rd time zone. It seems ages ago that we crossed the infant Missouri south of Helena.

 
People in the mid west are very friendly. Most are ranching types, busy with a very early harvest. Most of the talk is about the motor bike rally in Sturgis next weekend. This is the 75th, and they reckon anything from half a million to a million bikes will be there. Sturgis is on the I90 about 150 miles west of here – so thank goodness we weren’t doing this a week later. Hawes has nothing to complain about! The last few days has already seen a steady tide of bikes heading west. Locals like the trade, but hate some of the behaviour. Though I have to say that all the bikers we have seen so far have been careful and considerate road users – it seems a very different bike culture from home.