The Rascal Diaries: 7/31/14 A Corny Birthday

Rascal was hungry today and ate up some miles.

Route 80 took us to Lincoln, home of the Huskers and the capital of Nebraska. It is also the home of Frontier Harley Davidson, a huge dealership with a unique collection of Harley antiques. They also sold gas : octane 91, 95 and 100! They know what bikes like. After days of limping by on 87, with some booster, Rascal got a real treat and lit up the road.

In Lincoln we picked up route 2 that was our road buddie for the rest of the day. The Lewis and Clark Center was our picnic place. In a shady hidden spot, we celebrated Jules hoping cars wouldn't ride by too fast kicking up the white dust that is pervasive here.

Then we learned a little about Lewis and Clark. Everywhere we travel, these guys have been there first. Always pictured pointing at something or peering into the distance, they really got around in a relatively short amount of time considering their methods of travel. At the Center, there is a recreation of the boat in which they traveled the Missouri up to the Dakota Territories. We learned about another character in their story - Seaman, Lewis' Newfoundland, was man's best friend on the trip, hunting and retrieving for them.

Nebraska faded into the past with the smell of stockyards and a whirl of dust as we crossed the Missouri. The hilly farms of Iowa were our entertainment for the rest of the day. Terraced and contoured, massive acreage of corn grows on immaculate fields rolling over knolls and dips in the earth's surface. Beautiful and mesmerizing, Iowa rolled by in a blur of green. Side roads branching off the highway smoked with the same white dust we met in Nebraska as farmers and residents drove to their homes on dirt.

We ended the day in Centerville, Iowa after 316 miles on the road. Eating dinner across from the Courthouse at the restored Continental Hotel, we enjoyed watching farm boys and girls drive their white dusted pickups around the town square all night long. Feeling young at heart on Jules' birthday, we decided to take a few rounds ourselves and it was fun to cruise again.

Gradually covering the distance to home, we are anxious to get back. Our granddaughter Winnie singing "Happy Birthday Dear Poppi" gave us even more of a boost to get on our way. Covering the great central part of the states is both interesting and tedious, but after the Rockies everything is anticlimactic.