Joliet, IL to Ames, IA

Today we travelled 300 miles, making up for a little of the mileage lost on day two.

We left Joliet a little bit around 8AM. We had CB trouble, in that I had turned off my radio system by placing the helmet on the wrong button! Unbelievable. Its always the simple things.

Mark has been wanting to use his Ipod while on the road and I've been fighting it. Anyway, we used hand signals for the first 30 or so miles.

The roads turned two-lane and very nice about ten miles out of Joliet. We had nice ride to Hinckley, Il . Its very interesting in that for many miles you'd see farms, cornfields, and pocked with high-density gated communities. Really odd.

Further on the land opened up to just corn and farms. Very flat. We crossed the Mississippi in to Clinton, IA. There is a great sign on the eastern side of the Mississippi river welcoming you to Clinton. Of course, we blew passed it at about 60 mph and there really wasn't a place to stop and take a photo. Again, it would be nice to have the advance team from PBS with us.

In Clinton we stopped for gas and had a nice talk with a fellow who hadn't ridden in years but had traveled extensively on his 1970s BMW R75.

He said he too was going to be in Seattle in a few weeks to take the Alaskan cruise; we recommended th helicopter glacier trip despite its cost - once in a lifetime experience.

We stopped to have a soda where we were gassing up and I noticed that Mark's starboard saddlebag didn't look right. Turns out the nut holding the saddlebag bracket to the rear rack mount had come off and the remainder of the rack had worked loose from the shockabsorber bolt. Fortunately, there was an ACE hardware store around the corner so nuts for both sides were replaced with Nylon self-locking nuts.

Once in Iowa, we continued on route 30, stopping for lunch in Mechanicsville, IA, What a nice little town with false-front brick buildings and State Bank. The town looks like something out of Bonnie and Clyde or.... Public Enemies.

We started to encounter some hills just west of Mechanicsville- a little like central Pennsylvania. That flattened out to become more rolling plains rather than hills.

Heading further west we finally came across the Youngsville, Cafe. Staffed by volunteers, its a real original to the Lincoln Highway.

We are again staying at a Hampton Inn, this time in Ames. We are getting used to the routine but I like the accomodations and its usually convenient. Delivery take out: pizza, salad andwings. Tonight we're watching Gran Torino.

Tomorrow we'll take the day off. I'd kind of like to head off and get to our original July 3 destination of Denison, IA, but we'll make it up along the way.

Route 30 is under construction. There must be some political pull from Iowa. They are converting nice little two-laners in to extra-wide four laners. At least Mark and I are seeing somewhat of what it is, if not what it used to be.