Landing in the badlands after spending an entire night crossing the prairies of South Dakota was incredibly eerie. Waking up after hunkering down quickly to avoid a thunderstorm the night before, we woke up and saw we had camped in someone’s driveway.

So hurried to get out of there before we got yelled at, we didn’t even really appreciate the wide open and beautiful prairie that surrounded us. Now, I used the word eerie not to describe waking up in someone’s driveway, but rather the feeling we had of driving out of lush and green Minnesota and coming to the next morning surrounded by landscape you’d expect to see on Mars. We spent the day driving some pretty cool dirt roads through the park, scrambling all over the features and seeing our first collections of wildlife. Included in this wildlife were incredible numbers of fellow bikers. Without knowing it, we had landed in the black hills smack in the middle of Sturgis Bike Week!

Pretty excited that we had the chance to experience the famed bike week at the same time we were already going to be in town, we headed north from Rapid City towards Sturgis. Only about 15 miles out, we saw some of the most intimidating storm clouds of the trip. Black, huge, and full of lightning strikes. I flipped on the local radio to see what we were in for and the first thing I heard was “meteorologists are recommending that residents take cover in hard shelter to avoid the effects of hail, lightning and severe thunderstorms”. Knowing we had to find shelter quickly, we got off at the first exit for Sturgis and, like idiots, thought that we’d find a spot on a back road to set up camp. Surrounded by 500,000 people, we realized that that was not going to work out. Feeling the storm closing in, we spotted a bunch of tents crammed in on the grass around someone’s house. Brendan asked if we could join the group and 30 bucks later we had a place to make camp. I pitched my hammock between a tree and fence post, with Brendan taking the area right next door. As the rain started to come down we were both dry and sheltered. With the wind picking up, I realized that I had pitched myself facing the wrong way and was about to get hit with enough wind to render my rain fly ineffective. In the time it took to readjust, the storm had hit and I found myself climbing into my hammock, in my skivvies…completely soaked. The hammock had worked well up to this point, but was showing it’s limitations in rushed situations. Knowing that the trees were going to become sparse and that more storms were inevitable, it was right there…on the lawn in downtown Sturgis that I decided I needed a tent.

Nearly two full months and only a handful of uncomfortable situations have left me with good feelings about the hammock. It’s clearly not the best long term option for shelter but I still have it with me and intend to use it whenever possible. It remains the the most comfortable way to sleep I’ve ever found. The limitations in rushed conditions, trees, and warmth however make it necessary to augment for the long haul.