Oregon, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, etc

[pdedse]

Day 5: Chamberlain, SD to Cedar Falls, Iowa, 463 miles

Early morning hotel breakfast, met a man named Scott who was staying at the hotel, and he told me about the TWO 2013 CB1100s he bought a few months ago, one has 137 miles on it, and the other is still in the crate! That's crazy cool to keep a pristine bike I guess for the ages, but ride that other one! More hiway 90 to cross S.Dakota. One day I'll return to ride SD the right way. Started heading into Minnesota but a large, billowing thunderhead seemed to threaten rain if I kept going east on 90, so I turned south into Iowa. Having spent the first 20 years of my life in Kansas, things were starting to look familiar, but I didn't want to ignore the beauty of the midwest just because I was familiar with it.



There's that rain cloud that looked a lot more threatening 30 miles closer to it north

In Iowa it was go east, turn south, go south, turn east, east, south, south, east...no diagonals! Then I ran into this creek some call the Mississippi

Arrgggg last year or year before I blasted right past the entrance to Badlands on my way home. BY your pictures I can see that was a terrible mistake. NOw I have to go back.

Forgot to mention that at the hotel in Chamberlain, talked to an elderly gent that said that the day before, Sunday, Rushmore was a total zoo with tourists so thick you couldn't move without bumping into someone. I was very happy to have made the "wrong turn" and missed it this trip for the Badlands were much higher on my list. Only thing I would change is to have planned for more time to pack a lunch to take out there, look into to hiking a bit, spend more time out there. The riding there is as fun as the views are good. Yes...go back! : )

A bloke would have to visit somewhere that was actually called 'The Badlands', wouldn't he?

Right?!? One ol' guy was there with a bunch of other elderlys that had arrived by bus, and he was looking out over a viewpoint, and then he exclaimed outloud..."wow, these lands sure are.....Baaaaad!" It sounded so funny, all the folks started laughing at his obvious over the top humor.
Woops! Got ahead of myself...no matter...Day 5 ended in Cedar Falls, and I was catching up to a huge storm late evening as I got within 30 miles. Called ahead to a hotel and the lady receptionist told me to hold off as it was still raining hard. Had dinner at a roadside while the storm advanced to the east and an hour later I got to arrive dry to the hotel. Lady told me to park my bike under the roof where cars pull up to check-in, helped me with my bags to my second floor room, was asking me about my MC trip...nice way to end a long day after staring at the road and clouds all day long.

Day 6 was from Cedar Falls, IA to Champaign, Illinois, where my mom lives: 362 miles

So Day six is where I ran into the Mississippi. Kind of surprised me as much as running into the Mississippi can. I mean that I wasn't really thinking about where I was...you know it's there obviously, but I go to Burlington, IA and there it was. Now the Columbia is nearly my back yard, and I think it's wider while the Mississippi is longer or something like that, but they both are impressive bodies of water.

More shots of the creek



Burlington steeples