Day 3

More flat, flat land and mile after mile of corn fields. We saw a hillside covered with goldenrod in Iowa. The highway was straight with so few turns that by the time a curve came, we’d been driving over an hour and I practically forgot how to lean into it.

We went straight down the road for 50 miles looking at dark blue sky in the distance that meant rain on the horizon. But for 50 miles, we refused to stop to put on rain gear. I’m not sure why, but all motorcycle riders hate their rain gear. We put it on at the very last minute when it is obvious there is no way to get out of it. Well, maybe I do know why. It is hot, restrictive, hard to put on over boots, tight in some places and baggy in others.

Fat raindrops started to fall, so we pulled over at the next exit at an abandoned tractor trailer truck depot. We ate lunch, MRE’s of peanut butter and crackers. To avoid eating fast food for the whole trip, we kept a cooler with lunchmeat, bread, and a bag of sugar snap peas for our first few lunches. We hadn’t restocked, and the cooler is only so large, hence the MRE’s. MRE’s are designed to last unrefrigerated for years, but the only way the foil pack of crackers was edible is if they were prepared with an extremely high PB to cracker ratio. We sat under a truck bay, happily ate the lunch of the righteous, pulled on our rain gear, and hit the road again.

The benefit of hitting a pelting rain on Day 2 of the trip is that all other rains seem like a mere inconvenience. We ended up going through a construction zone as rain again had us huddled behind our windshields. A truck went through a huge area of standing water and splashed it all over on L who was riding right in front of me. She was covered by a towering wall of grimy road water. I was scared for her for a minute, afraid she would lose all visibility and run into a concrete barrier. Then as the wall cleared, I saw her pump her fist toward the sky in absolute defiance to the gods, as if to say, “Oh really? Seriously? Bring it! Is that all you got?”

The rain cleared, and we saw our first “Scenic Overlook” sign since West Virginia. We didn’t even bother to stop. It appeared that the only overlook was a slight rise that allowed flatlanders to survey a town in a valley. Yawn. Besides, we were tired of these two states and wanted to make our daily quota of mileage. Every day was planned in detail with a particular campground reserved for our destination. There was no room at all for dallying. And for whatever reason, Mapquest and the GPS would both give us a similar mileage total for the day, but by the time we would reach the campground, our daily odometer readings would reflect an additional 40 miles or so. It was maddening to S, who had planned everything so carefully to prevent us from ever going much more than 400 miles, mainly because both K and myself have a history of back problems and can’t take high mileage. S is about the toughest woman I know and loves to ride. She could probably cover 600-700 miles a day by herself, happily. So it was a total gift of love that she planned differently just for K and I.

Our last stop before reaching the campground was at a pickup truck beside the road in Iowa selling fresh ears of corn out of the back. We picked up half a dozen ears, and headed the last 30 miles. K and I both got orthodontia as adults, and both of us got our braces off within a month of taking off for this trip. We were both thrilled with the opportunity to eat fresh corn on the cob for the first time in at least a year and a half without having to cut it off the cob.

Within a mile of the campground, I hit a bump in the road. I have a cup holder attachment on my handlebars, and the pin holding it on vibrated loose. The cup holder and the bottle of water in it both went airborne and apparently hit my little windshield bag that holds my digital camera. The camera also went airborne and all pieces landed in the middle of a two-lane road with no shoulder.

The camera was rated as waterproof and shockproof. It survived being launched from a motorcycle going 55 mph and hitting a road, but not without taking casualties. It is clearly no longer waterproof, because the metal casing is bent all to hell and back, but it still takes pictures. Cha-ching. Another unexpected trip expense to replace yet another electronic device.

Day 3 recap: 450 miles, RV campground on the river in Onawa, IA
2 states: Iowa, Nebraska,