BIG

Everything about yesterday was BIG...
Big storms
Big skies
Big fields
Big windmill farms
Big breakfast
Big cans of beer (Larry's contribution)
Big distances

We had a quick and early start to our trip yesterday heading out at 7:30 a.m.  We stopped for breakfast in Knoxville at a fabulous little place called the Knoxville Bar and Grill.  Now I know a couple of you will probably say what the heck are they doing stopping at a Bar first thing in the morning.  We have found some of the best breakfast places at Bar and Grills and most are not even really bars at all. Serving home cooked fresh food, these places serve the best hash browns and omelettes.  We also had a fresh homemade biscuit which I have to say was one of the lightest biscuits I have ever eaten. Along side the bar and grill was an info center that was an old gas station in its' previous life.  Lots and lots of Americana when you travel the old highways through some of these small communities...they really are lovely and the people you meet are equally as lovely.

Breakfast in Knoxville!

We did a mix of secondary highways and Interstate yesterday and the scenery did not change much. Lots of cornfields, but as Larry says.."nothing corny about this trip".  There is another crop that is planted, however we haven't been able to figure out what they are yet.  We passed some of those fields and in the sun their leaves were emerald green and with the wind blowing on the fields, it had almost a plush or velvet look to them.  So soft you almost want to run over and jump in, but something tells me the landing wouldn't be as soft as anticipated!  We saw a crop duster plane buzzing over the fields which was pretty cool to actually see.  Man those things drop in and out of the sky pretty fast.

As we travel over most of the secondary highways we see a tremendous amount of windmill farms...way too many windmills to count (like we do at home) and they stretch for miles in all directions.  We stopped at a gas station late yesterday and a bunch of transport trucks with windmill parts pulled in....the trailers so low they were scraping the ground...the parts themselves are huge so I can only guess that these farms are actually miles away even though they seem so much closer...
that being said, you can see for miles in these parts...or as one fellow said, you can see your dog run away for days.

The benefit of being able to see for miles is also being able to see any coming storms.  We did a great job avoiding all of the big weather that people kept telling us was coming.  This includes the nice lady at McDonald's in Mason City who felt compelled to warn us to be careful as they were calling for heavy thunderstorms which also bring Tornados, and that they had actually seen some funnel clouds "just the other day".....thank you lady...see you later!  Apparently tornados are actually common events in these parts...even though we are north of Kansas (no Dorothy I am not in Kansas). At the stop in Algona where we saw the windmill parts, a nice corn farmer (not a corny joke) told us about a tornado that came through in 1979 and took out an entire motel which once stood in the parking lot we were standing in...OK..nice chatting and on we go!  We did get a little rain after leaving Mason City however it was a welcome relief from the humidity...the temps didn't get much higher than 27 but the humidity was a bit heavy.

So we travelled 711 kms yesterday, hoping to make it to Sioux Falls.  We ended up in Okoboji for the night which is next to Spirit Lake.  Beautiful area and it looks very much like a destination location for anyone in the surrounding areas.

We called ahead and are getting oil changes in our bikes this afternoon at the local Yamaha dealer. They were awesome enough to fit us in.  We won't make Mount Rushmore today but will definitely be there tomorrow and hope to also get Deadwood and Sturgis in as well.  This will be a welcome change to our schedule as most of our trip has been more about riding and not necessarily the tourist stuff thus the lack of photos.  Even though we are enjoying every minute of the scenery and ride I am looking forward to some of the different sight-seeing elements over the next few days.

One thing we did note about our ride so far is that it is not the Tail of the Dragon that we did in 2011. There we did 319 turns in 11 miles....so far we have been lucky to get 11 turns in 319 miles (or more).

Hopefully we will have more photos for you tomorrow...last night was a late day which is why blog posting wasn't done until this morning...that coupled with the two Mike's Hard Lemonade after a long day of riding...your welcome!

Stay tuned!

Old Shell Station