440 Miles, One Turtle, and a Fucking Hailstorm

440 miles. One turtle. And somewhere between Stanley and Bottineau, we apparently pissed off Mother Nature.

The original plan was simple: find two of North Dakota’s three giant turtle statues on the motorcycle.

One in Bottineau known as Tommy the Turtle. One in Dunseith, known as the W’eel Turtle.

The third one, in Turtle Lake, known as Rusty, would have to wait for another trip.

Simple enough, right?

We checked the weather app. Three times.

There was some rain showing up around Bottineau, but according to the radar, it looked like it would clear out before we got there. So, around 9:30 that morning, we climbed on the bike and headed east on Highway 2.

Everything was going according to plan. Until we hit Stanley. That’s when the wind started picking up.

By the time we reached Berthold and turned north on Highway 28, the wind was ripping at 30–40 mph sustained. Not exactly the kind of wind you hope to find when you’re sitting on a motorcycle trying to cover a few hundred miles. But here we are.

No sense turning back now. So we powered through.

Once we reached Highway 5, we turned east toward Bottineau. About 60 miles to go.

And that's when things started looking a little sketchy. Way off in the distance, I saw a bolt of lightning.

My first thought was simple: Let's stay behind this storm.

The Passenger Princess did a quick radar check and gave us the all-clear. The storm was moving east, so we should be able to stay behind it.

So we kept rolling.

What we were riding into

What was behind us. Literally Night and Day difference!

The wind had shifted into a headwind now, and it was wearing me the hell out. Fighting the bike and the wind mile after mile wasn't exactly what I had in mind when we left that morning.

Then, about 7.5 miles from Bottineau, we started getting some light rain. My thought was to back off the throttle, stay behind the storm, and let it move on.

Except the storm had other plans.

It had stalled. And we ended up driving straight into it. This wasn't a little rain shower. This was a full-on North Dakota thunderstorm. With fucking hail.

Hail.

Rain.

Wind.

Fuck my life.

And, because apparently we hadn't made enough questionable decisions that morning, neither of us had rain gear. We weren't planning on riding through rain, so why would we need it?

We can’t even call this a lesson learned, because we fucking know better!

Within minutes, I was soaked from my balls to my toes. Water was pouring into my boots, and at that point there was only one thing left to do: Find shelter. Now!

Those 7.5 miles into Bottineau felt like the longest 7.5 miles of my life. Finally, we made it into town and pulled into a Cenex gas station.

Shelter.

We sat there and waited. And waited. So while we waited we had a gas station lunch.

At least an hour passed before we finally got a break in the weather. The storm had moved on enough that we were left with nothing more than a light drizzle.

So naturally, we got back on the bike.

Because we hadn't come all this way to sit at a gas station. We came to see Tommy the Turtle, our first scheduled stop.

And honestly, Tommy is pretty damn funny. He's riding a snowmobile, which is about as North Dakota as a giant turtle statue can possibly get.

We got our turtle picture.

And that's where the trip ended.

Tommy the Turtle rides a snowmobile.

Because in North Dakota, even the turtles have figured out how to deal with winter.

The storm was heading the same direction we were, and there was absolutely no fucking way I was going to ride back into that mess again.

So we turned the bike east and headed home.

Defeated.

Wet.

Cold.

The wind was still kicking our asses.

But hey, at least we got one turtle.

440 miles round trip.

One turtle.

The North Dakota Turtle Tour had officially been defeated by Mother Nature.

Until we see you on the road again... Live Life With an Attitude.