To South Dakota

On the evening of Saturday the 14th the NOAA Aurora Dashboard gave pretty good odds of there being a good aurora the following day, with the view line almost reaching down into Missouri, with a chance of it being overhead as far south as northern Iowa and Nebraska.

Looking at a light pollution map I decided that straight north, towards Minneapolis wasn't worth it, if I was going to make an overnight trip. After plugging some cities into Google Maps, I decided that Mitchell, SD would be my destination if I was going to do this, with incredibly dark skies about an hour west of there, and 6.5 hours there was tough but reasonable for a single day drive.

On Sunday the 15th I woke up, checked both the aurora forecast and the weather forecast, and talked myself into leaving the house about 9am. With rest area stops and getting gas, I got into Mitchell about 5pm. And so much construction along the way, I-90 was one lane each direction for a decent amount outside of Sioux Falls.

After checking into a hotel, getting dinner, and back to the hotel for about an hour nap, I headed out to the middle of some field, well, a dirt road intersection between some fields. Got my camera set up and pointed north, and waited. And was also amazed at how bright the moon was, which kind of ruined the hope for dark skies.

And I sat till about 1:30AM, seeing the sky do absolutely nothing interesting when I decided to pack up and head back to the hotel. The aurora dashboard was showing absolutely no activity, I guess whatever was supposed to hit that night missed.

So day 1 of this two day trip mostly a disappointment.