Our first stop this morning was just up the road for petrol and some breakfast.  Whilst there, a guy told Paul that he had been camping overnight and had now taken down his camp, because of the big storm in its way.  He said, ‘no way I’d be wanting to ride a motorcycle in this weather’, and another lady showed Paul the weather front coming on a weather warning website.

Paul quickly established what the storm would be about, which was rain, and high winds, but not a tornado or hurricane.  Two weeks ago, just after we first arrived there were some really bad tornados across the areas we are now in, so we were instantly on alert. Not actually having witnessed one before we were unsure if the impact gets exaggerated or if the danger is very real.

Anyway, we decided that we would try setting off as there was no rain, and we could just see the clouds clustering over to the West.  We rode for about 20 minutes, just about to the edge of the thick grey funnel of cloud, and it really hoofed it down, with lightening as well.  Paul had spotted a Gas station off to the left, so we took shelter there, and were pretty glad we did, because the rain was torrential with those promised high winds for 45 minutes or so, before easing off again.  The woman in the shop told us we were brave!  Paul said he thought perhaps we were more foolish than anything. There were a constant stream of people coming in exclaiming at us being there. Eventually, we decided it had stopped enough to set off, I scrambled into the sidecar, tucking myself under the cover, and getting my head low behind the screen, and off we set, we rode in a good hour of lashing rain, but visibility was not too bad, and Paul took it easy, until finally we turned a corner and there was the line of clear sky at the bottom of all that grey.  We rode closer and closer to it, until, yes! We were back into full sunshine. 

We end the day in an apartment that we have rented in Atlantic, it’s for two nights and is beautiful.  We walked down to ‘Oinkers’ for some pork loin, (Paul was craving pig!), quite pleasant despite the 32 degrees centigrade 2 mile round trip. 

Up with excitement this morning.  We both enjoy the tv programme ‘American Pickers’ on the History Channel at home, and we had a chance to swing by their shop, so the draw was just too much.

On the programme Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz travel America, looking for good ‘picks’, which means visiting various collectors of memorabilia in their homes, and trying to negotiate to buy some of their precious collections.  They have particular names for things, Folk Art, Americana, and love anything old, be it automobiles, toys, machinery, vintage signs, whatever.

Anyway, we made our way to LeClaire where their shop, Antique Archaeology is based, in Iowa.  What a beautiful place, it is at the side of the Mississippi river, and is a town chock full of beautiful shops and antique emporiums.  The atmosphere there reminded us very much of our home town in the U.K, beautiful Whitstable.

Anyway, we rolled up onto the drive (which deceptively behind a gas station- doesn’t look like that on the telly!), and lo and behold, Mike is outside the shop with a large group of motorcycle riders on Indian motorcycles. So, we dutifully queued up to have our photo taken with him, and he took time to chat with us, have a photo with the bike and sidecar, and tell us about a place to eat lunch, and the national motorcycle museum in a place called Anamosa, which turned out to be on our way today.  He seemed a nice and generous guy, happy to give a little time to everybody, especially children.  A lovely and surprising experience.

Afterwards we sat at the side of the Mississippi for a time, before heading off to the museum. That also turned out to be interesting.

Lastly, we’ve been checking out a website called roadsideamerica, and couldn’t resist visiting the world’s largest frying pan (actually turned out to be Iowa’s largest frying pan, not the world)- worth a see, and we met a nice young couple for a quick chat about life, the universe and everything. Finally, we set off for our motel at Vinton, Iowa.

I got a bit overheated today, and felt a bit faint, so must make sure that I am drinking enough. It’s easy to be caught out, because we’ve crossed from humid heat into dry heat. The temperature is not as high, but the withdrawal of moisture makes quite a difference. I’ll take some extra care with that now.

A moving on day only, starting off under grey clouds and humidity, and riding into blue skies and drier heat.

Today was spent mainly passing through the fields and fields of corn, and soya plants growing in this vast flat state, once again superbly green.  These last few days have been a little tougher for us because there is a monotony to them, and no clear sight of when we get to the next wow thing.

When we stopped for a chat today, we decided that this is the meat and bones of our travelling.  It’s easy on the days when you get up full of excitement and adrenaline to get going, and be out there in rain or shine, but it requires more stickability when the day promises not a lot more than relentless heat and the same scenery over and over again. When setting out to achieve the East to West ride across the USA, we knew there would be challenging days for different reasons.

We are spending between 5-8 hours approximately travelling each day, and then several hours are spent researching the next areas to visit, for lodgings, and places to visit, also keeping the diary blog.  These are enjoyable hours spent, just as enjoyable as the travelling on.

Another grey but warmish start to the day.  Moving on and heading to the Mid West today.

We stopped off at Williams Bridge, which was built in 1884, and was the longest covered bridge in Indiana.  Apparently it can hold 400 people, it was long and thin, and covered the East Fork of White river at Huron & Williams.  Very interesting, there we met a couple called Bill and Nancy who were 70 and 67 respectively and enjoyed taking road trips.  They were from Michigan.

As the day went on, the landscape flattened out considerably, and once we had entered Illinois, we could understand why these are the Great Plains of America.  Fields and fields of Soya plants, and Corn and high winds across the flat lands.

At a later stop we met Daryl, a guy who was picking up supplies for a client lunch meeting, who stopped and made time to chat with us, as he was a fellow BMW rider. Daryl was very interested in our trip, and said he was envious, and we had made his day!  He was also kind enough to extend an offer of accommodation, if we get back this way again.

We were up at 6.30 to a very foggy morning, we could barely see past the bike.  Last night we had bought some bits and pieces in the local deli, so after breakfast in the room and packing, the fog had lifted a fair bit for us to make our getaway by 8am.

We’re trying to ride a bit earlier in the day as it’s very hot here by mid-afternoon now, late twenties, or even thirty degrees.

We had planned to still follow the Ohio river Scenic Byway again, just taking a detour off from it to search out another covered bridge.  This time in Germantown, Kentucky.  It was built in 1864, so pretty early on, and was in quite bad disrepair, so we could not ride through it, which was a shame.  Lovely roads around it though.

The route took us through some pretty run down areas, in particular Manchester in Ohio, where despite seeming to be a lot of industry by the river nearby, there was just a real air of deprivation.  This continued on and off for a lot of the day.  The people were still friendly and chatty, but had a general air of being worn down, and just uncared for.  Very sad to see such a contrast, from the previous states we have visited.

We have stopped in Salem, tonight, which is busy and  pleasant.