Backtrack to Day Five: It began at the motel in Medora, when the thunderstorm started

Since few of you will ever see it, I will attempt (and fail) to describe the most stunning sight I've ever seen: The Badlands lit up by lightning. Pitch black, then the thunder crash and the hills (mountains?) were lit up for less then a second, burned on our retinas. Then a wait, and then it would happen again, but we didn't know exactly when. It was a powerful, glorious, fleeting vision.

Then in the morning we went to this bar and ordered breakfast which took forever to come out of the kitchen, but it was really good. Stick Girl's pancake was huge. If she kept eating those, she'd no longer be Stick Girl.

We toured the Chateau de Moreswhich isn't really a chateau.

After that, our original intention was to take the northern route across the state (on Highway 2) but I made the executive decision that I didn't feel like slowing down for towns. Good thing, because the weather was nasty. Here's an excerpt from a phone conversation I had with the Jesus of Cheese.

"We're on the Interstate heading toward Bismarck. Can you look up a weather radar screen on the internets for us?"

"Where are you?"

"On the Interstate. West of Bismarck."

"You should be fine. It's clear in Bismarck."

"But we're not there yet. We're pulled over to the side of the freeway because..." I glanced at Marty Mouse. I decided to not mention the hydroplaning we'd just done. "Well, just because."

"It looks fine, except for one dot of really bad weather about 40 miles West of Bismarck on this one big road, and it looks like it's just passing over there. What's that noise? Are you standing next to a diesel engine or something?"

"The sound is that dot passing over our heads."

And later, we heard of tornadoes on the road we had planned on taking but didn't. So I made a good call. Go, me!

A quick stop at Paradiso in Fargo (the kids loved it), and we were at the Cloning Factory a couple of hours later. My parents were happy to see us.

Ah, the Cloning Factory. It smells like old people, but it's home.