Here's another photo from my trip to the plains. This one is on the Lake Traverse Indian Reservation, or the Sisseton Oyate Nation in South Dakota. This has to be probably one of my most horrifying life experiences ever. You may not perceive it too well but that is an intense storm in the distance and it was a dark cloud mass that was touching the ground. Despite the fact that shortly after this photo I took a right turn to avoid it, the storm came right at me. Lightning struck down about 1000 feet in front of me near the road! Before long it was pouring so hard my car's wipers couldn't help me see better, the wind was stronger than anything I had ever seen, and then we got hail. My car was consumed by the dark cloud and I could hardly even see the road. I was convinced I was about to get blown away or sucked up by a tornado or something. I couldn't see anything but the tail lights of the car in front of me. To top it all off, the hail started getting nasty. I desperately followed the person in front of me closely closely as it was the only thing I could see holding me in the real world. I had never driven through something like that. Finally the car in front of me pulled over to the side of the road and I followed. I was 40 minutes away from any sort of settlement which made it more alarming. Eventually the storm passed and the sky became clear pretty quickly. I was so massively relieved when I was able to get back on the road. A few minutes later as I was catching my breath I started laughing, unable to believe what just happened. What wild weather!