The first project this morning was to find the geographic centre of the USA, it's about 25 miles north of Belle Fourche in a field somewhere. It seems strange that the centre would be this far north but it's done on the geographic gravity method and Alaska is heavy. Eight miles up a gravel road there was a small sign and a piece of broken wood placed over a barbed wire fence. I carefully climed over it and walked out to the flag at the spot.

A small plaque form the USGS marks the spot, this is the centre with both Alaska and Hawaii included.

The surrounding country is not inspiring. FYI, old US85, the gravel road, does rejoin new US85 about 30 miles further on, I didn't follow it as I didn't have a map showing it.

Now this was a silly incident, to cut the long story short the Sioux attacked the Crow and chased them up on top of the butte. The Sioux then staged a siege and starved the Crow. When they were dead the Sioux caught a disease from the bodies and most of them died too. At least they had an outhouse...

Next on the agenda was Theodore Roosevelt National Park, I hadn't planned on visiting this park but a fellow rider in Belle Fourche recommended it. It was a bit out of the way, my first sighting was from a viewpoint off I90.

Badlands everywhere.

Teddy Roosevelt came here after his mother and wife died almost at the same time, he bought this small cabin. He liked the area so much he bought a ranch the next year and spent a lot of time hunting there, apparently he would ride up to 50 miles a day.

Thank goodness the scenic loop is only 36 miles. This was the least interesting National Park I have ever been to, the drive wanders through the low rolling hills and there is almost nothing to look at over its entire length.

Finally the Little Missouri comes into sight, at least it's not another low hill.

This little side trip added 100 miles to my day and by the time I finished the loop it was already 4pm and I still had 300 miles to go. Just before sunset I passed Lake Sakakawea, the largest man made lake in the US, 368,000 acres. Lewis and Clark stopped here and Clark wrote in his diary "Nothing very remarkable took place" which seems appropriate.

Finally I reached Devil's Lake, 627 miles for the day, there was a huge storm blasting away to the east and I was very pleased to reach my stop before I reached it. The storm did spawn a tornado that killed one person about 30 miles east of Devil's Lake.

North Dakota - the 50th state I have spent the night in, now I have the whole set.