Day 5:
Ann Arbor Michigan to Niobrara State Park Nebraska (on the Missouri River)
Total Miles: 2330
States covered: MI (segment start), Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska (segment
end)
Time Zones: 2 (eastern, central)
This turned out to be a decent drive. Only got sprinkled on for a short bit. A few construction spots slowed me down, but the lack of traffic made some 1 lane spots not so bad. It was incredibly windy though, a couple times I was almost blown off the road. Weee. Driving from the western side of Iowa over to Nebraska and up the Missouri was interesting. The road taken followed the Lewis & Clark Expedition. In the few hours it took me to drive to Niobrara State Park, I saw many markers pointing out L&C Expedition campgrounds. It's hard to imagine traveling such a short distance in one day.
Niobrara was deserted. I was the only one camping there that night. There is a reason for that. It was dark and ominous with the wind blowing hard all evening. I had to set up my little burner in the back of the shelter, picture below, and even then I needed to surround it with bags and my cooler to keep it lit. The bags and cooler also came in handy trying to hold my tent down. Around 2am the wind was too much for me and I hastily brought down my tent and jumped in the car. Almost immediately after that, the rains came. Between the wind and the rain, I didn't sleep much thinking that the wind was going to blow the car over (it really shook a lot) or get washed away. Oh, and it dropped 40 degrees overnight. No joke. 83 that evening, 43 when I woke up. When I crossed over into South Dakota later the next morning, it was down to 36. It got even colder...
Almost looks sunny. Shelter wasn't quite facing the right way to keep the amazing winds out:
Dark & windy, shelter is the little building in the center:
And the temperature the next morning - 40 degrees down from 83 the night before:
The end, for now...