As I drifted off to sleep last night I thought the main problem would be the highway noise, but it wasn't that bad. Instead, the wind howled all night. At times making me wonder if my tent stakes were sufficient. I sat in the tent just after sunrise and was about to get up, when a big gust of wind from the north nearly blew the tent over with me inside it. I quickly jumped out, disconnected my rain fly and tent from the poles, and grabbed everything by the corners and carried it to the nearby covered area that had a 4 foot wall around it. Very glad that it was there or it would have been hard to get everything put away with the high wind. I stopped at a tiny weird mini mart, the only store in town that I could see. It had huge packages of weird stuff, most of which didn't make any sense for me. I ended up getting a bunch of Snickers and OHenry bars and a coke, for extra water. I filled 5 liters on the bike in preparation for if the only town of the day, tiny Etzikom, didn't have water. The wind was blowing hard, directly from the north. With the sun out it was actually sort of hot with it behind me. With all the wind last night it didn't get that cold. But the temperature struggled to rise much all day. As soon as I turned east the wind hit me like a ton of bricks. And it was bitterly cold. I was glad to have my knee, arm and ear warmers on. Thankfully I was on gravel mostly today. However it was tricky at times. The gravel was pretty loose again and often there was only a couple of decent lines, usually on the left side of the road. So I had to pay attention for traffic. There's actually a lot of trucks as this is harvest time for corn and potatoes here. I crossed through the middle of a large pond this morning while the winds were very high and gusty. The north side had actual waves, big ones and the force of the wind was pushing some water onto the road surface at times. I was quite afraid it was strong enough to blow me over. Thankfully I got through ok but it was scary. As the day wore on, the wind actually died down a lot. Temperature improved but the sky just behind me gradually clouded up. I turned onto the highway to Etzikom, and had to wait by the side of the road to let half of a big house go by, on a big trailer. Strange but kinda cool. I rolled on to town at a decent hour. I hoped that the Windmill museum would have at least bathroom water, but they were closed for the season. Drat. I did get to see all the outside stuff which was impressive. There were various antique metal and wooden windmills but the best one was a huge dutch style one. I poked around the building but didn't see a faucet. I then rode through town and they had a small park but no water. And a small church in disrepair but no dice there either. I rolled on, I still had 4 liters, and only about 40 miles left. The wind and gradual hills up to Cypress hills park really did me in today. As I approached I became more and more tired. I just wanted to stop and camp. I went by several probably acceptable stealth spots, but all on private land. I kept pushing. Weather was good but there was a huge cloud over the hills. As I got closer it was looking more like it might be rain. I somehow found the energy to make it to the very edge of the park boundary and I rode and walked up the hill and found a reasonably hidden and wind protected spot. As soon as I finished setting everything up and throwing my stuff inside, it began to rain. Thank goodness I stopped when I did because it then rained for over two hours, at times hard. And it's still raining as I type this. I'm exhausted and don't have a whole lot of water but the town of Elkwater which has a store is very close. There's tons of campgrounds there and if the weather were better I might have pushed on. But this is fine. Glad I didn't have to ride in the rain.