Day 3 - July 16

Today was "Improvise Day". The original plan had us using quite a bit I80 to get from one eastern edge of Iowa to the western edge.

We talked about it and all agreed that it would be better to try and stay off the interstate and see if we could still make good time. In the end, it was a gorgeous day for a ride, although the temperature did climb up to the mid 90's (around 35C), as long as we were moving it wasn't too bad at all. You can see the originally planned route in blue on the last photo, and the route that we actually wound up taking in red.

We started by dropping down to the north shore of the mighty Mississippi River for a photo-op and a ride along a scenic byway and then picked up The Grand Army of the Republic Hiway (US6) for a while. We stopped in Coralville to get an ABC picture at the local Harley shop (wasn't open until later in the day) and then for some pie and ice cream - Manny had a real breakfast - at the Village Inn.

We continued along the secondary roads for the rest of the day - us, the corn fields (BIG corn, in fact at one point there was a transport truck parked beside the cornfield and the corn was as high as the top of truck!), some bean farms and the odd cow and horse farms. Gently rolling land made for a very enjoyable ride.

And, there was so very little traffic too, with the exception being when

we were just north of Des Moines. We also went through a "universe" of places, from Buffalo to Montpellier to Dallas and even to Moscow and Persia!

We wound up making it to Missouri Valley in good time, got ourselves checked into the Oak Tree Inn and wound up having dinner at Penny's Diner, right next door.

Tomorrow, we head into South Dakota!