Heading North

Thursday opened under threatening skies across Iowa, a check of the radar images confirmed that it may be a challenging day. However, directly north of us the skies did look somewhat more promising, so off in that direction we went. Our first stop was in Amana, Iowa, location of the historic Amana colonies. Recommend that everyone look it up on the web and see what you may learn.

The main object of our visit was The Colony Inn. Yes, you guessed it, food is involved. They serve a sit down family style breakfast. No menu, no ordering, you just sit down and they start bringing out the food. Everything from fruits, to homemade bread, preserves, eggs, bacon, sausage, potatoes, etc. You guessed it, as soon as you clean off one platter, they fill it up again. Finally we had to surrender or motorcycle tires were in serious jeopardy.

Back on the road we headed toward Cedar Rapids, riding through the town was a sobering experience. In spite of all the coverage we have seen on TV, the impact of driving through the city streets, seeing the water marks high up on the sides of the buildings, the amount of destroyed furnishings and household item piled along the street to be hauled away, all was shocking. The scene of devastation and damage is indescribable.

As we continued north we did run into some showers near Waterloo. We were ready with our rain gear and were able to handle it quite well. In a short while we were out of the precip and moving toward better looking skies. A stop at a rest area near the Minnesota border afforded us the opportunity to look at the current weather radar. Nearly all of Iowa was have some type of heavy storms and rain. We indeed had been very fortunate.

Traveling through Minnesota found us enjoying clearing skies and lots of sunshine. The only downer was our encounter with rush hour traffic around Minneapolis, what a nightmare. Once past that we had really nice ride northwest across the state on I-94. Actually very scenic and enjoyable. Night time has us bedding down in Alexandria, MN. Today's travels covered 550 miles, bringing our total to 730 thus far.