Even though we didn’t get to sleep until after 1am due to the severe thunderstorm, I was awake by 6am. I knew the wind was going to get stronger as each hour passed coming out of the east and that we were in for another severe storm with 90% chance of rain coming in during the afternoon, so we quickly packed up and headed for coffee at the gas station. As I sat sipping a cup of coffee, a man getting gas asked how we faired during the night. I told him we were in a tent and it was quite scary. He said parts of his fence was torn down and he had a lot of tree limbs come down. We continued to bike on Old Highway 10. The wind was light and the hills felt much easier with a few hours of sleep. We passed through Dickenson where I was able to change over to Map #4! (Small pleasures). Around noon the wind started to blow 15 to 20 from the east and we ended our day in Richardton, a town of 300 people. We knew we would only get a few miles in due to the forecast, but were happy with our 40 miles. We got a room at a small motel to weight out the approaching storm. We must have looked warn out and weathered, because the woman who runs the motel insisted that she take us to the local grocery since everything else was closed because it was Sunday. We took her up on her offer and resupplied. The storm blew in quickly, and the woman said if we heard the tornado siren, to head to her place where we could all get in her basement. Strong winds, hail, and torrential rain was all we got luckily as we watched from inside the room, glad to be safe and dry.
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