Tilting at windmills (9/28/23 Thu)

Turns out sleeping under a street light isn't hard after Alaska.

The condensation inside my tent, even with both doors open near the bottom, was unexpected. Add in that the sun doesn't really break the trees here until 0745 local time. Which is 0845 in the Eastern time I keep my analog watch set to. Tent drying is no easy job. During coffee I shook off the fly and layed it over a nearby picnic table. After coffee I wiped down the fly with my dish towel. Then wring water from the towel, and the fly still looks wet. At least the sun finally arrived to help out. Certainly can't get off to a quick start with a dry tent. Might have been better off packing up wet again and taking a long break mid-day to air it out at a rest area. I did that in Georgia once, after packing up in the rain, it it worked out nicely. By 0900 I gave up and rode off with a balled up rain fly on my pillion.

While waiting I opened up one of the nuts on the ground from the large trees. Turns out they are Black Walnuts. The hard shell inside the husk looked like a walnut, but the insides don't look like the walnuts I buy in the grocery store. Oddly not many locals could identify them. I guess that's just the age we live in.

Before leaving the park I attempted to find the bridge. Once back on Rt80 I decided to seek out something easier to find. So I exited and drove the 6 miles to a Dutch Windmill in Elkhorn, IA. At least that kind of stood out. Iowa is peppered with modern windmills all along Rt80. So I had been seeing those for nearly a day.

Back on Rt80 with sights set on Scooters Coffee in Council Bluff, IA. I got worried once I realized it was on Madison Ave, but it's "not that Maddison Ave". Really it's like a Dunkin, maybe with better coffee.

Just before reaching Scooter's I saw a lone biker slowly gaining on me. He caught up and we waved as he slowly passed. Then pulled into a rest area, wth me hot on his tail. We talked for a few minutes. He retired 4 years ago so he could do more touring, while still capable. He's been most of the places I have, except the eastern canada parts. Good talk but I had to let him get to the restrooms. And I still had coffee #2 just down the road.

Just west of Lincoln NE, just off Rt 80 is the Strategic Air Comand & Aerospace Museum. Perhaps I could gain the upper hand on my windmill battle here. For some reason the mueum had a lot of planes. No stickers and little that can be used against windmills. It's like they never even considered them a threat!. It was nice to see an SR71 and other stealth planes. Plus a lot of older planes that are surely why "we won the war..." Jim, Allan and Tucker will certainly wonder why I took the photos that I did. Just like at the Barber Motorcycle museum, I choose random stuff that looked cool to my untrained eye.

Leaving the museum to continue my ride west on the same Rt 80...

But this time it reached well into the 90s. In fact I saw 95F at one point, but most of the ride was a 93F with a strong side wind. Wind and the 75mph speed limit provided my worst gas milage below 40mpg. But I didn't want to stop until I had to. Trying to still get in some miles today, after all the museuming. And expecting the stop would be somewhat extended, to give the earth some time to cool down. I got off one exit too soon,, but took the oportunity to snap a few photos of the arch museum over Rt80. I saw this from the rode on my way east a few months ago. Yes this is the same road I took through Nebraska on my way home from Alaska.

I'm typing this from a nice cool both at a Perkins. Soon I have to go back outside again, and get water and gas. Then ride awhile to locate a grassy tent sized location to setup my dry tent. It dried out in minutes in the parking lot of the coffee shop. Bright sunlight and wind are magic. Next time I'll just roll up the fly wet and wait for a similar spot to air dry it in the sunshine. Almost smarter than dogs I am.