Shortly after leaving Chuck's, i realized i had forgotten to load my garmin routes into the Zumo GPS -DOH! Those routes are in my laptop, which is on a Ups truck somewhere. Argh! All is not lost... I have a printout of the hptel addresses, and paper maps of the states. Tonight i will need some alone-time with the zumo and Arkansas roads....
Other than that, the ride wasn't very eventful. I had forgone the large VStream shield vor the stock shield in anticipation of potential heat issues, and within 100 miles i think i regret that decision. The stock shield is very noisy with some buffeting in any position. I should be ok though... I managed to to ride 20k with it last year...
The weather wasn't too bad. North of Mason city it was wet and 63f, then it warmed to 86 in west des moines.
Don't ask me why ... But Iowa has some slow drivers and a lot of tailgaters. On entering des moines, traffic was going 80mph and most people were 3-4 feet behind the car in front. Except the old folks going 10 under the limit. But the roads are nice and smooth ... Crossing from mn to ia was going from expansion cracks to smooth sailing. Why can't mn makes roads they do in ia, wi, or the dakotas? The only place with worse roads than mn is canadia.
We got checked into our room and started our walk to rockbottom.. (yes, We choose hotels based on walking distance to brewpubs) aAs we approached rock bottom, we realized it didn't have any signs... Or cars parked out front... OMG are they closed? Do we have to go to outback across the street and suffer with mainstream ozzy brews? We weren't n the mood to jump on the bikes and ride to granite city... So we walked around the corner and found... ROCK BOTTOM! Yippee! So here we are, drinkin great beer, reading the economst, and updating blogs.
More tomorrow!
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