Wednesday 11th July

Having had a late night blogging, I was glad to see that the time had shifted another zone and that it was only one, rather than two whatever when I went to bed. I set my alarm for 06.00 and woke a few minutes before it went off. Rich had said he was getting up at six, and Kev at six thirty.

How nice, then, to have them knocking on my door at five minute intervals as I performed my morning ablutions, eventually receiving a call from Richard. They were very wobbly because they had set their alarms in the previous time zone (apparently it fluctuated in that part of Illinois) so had already been up and waiting quite a while, silly boys!

We had breakfast at McDonalds and still hit the road fairly early., heading for Peoria. It was a pretty straight forward run there. It was a lot warmer than yesterday morning, despite the earlier hour, so I wasn't cold riding in a tee shirt. We stopped at a gas station in Peoria and refuelled and had a coffee. I wish it had been possible to do things a bit differently, because I'd like to have visited Von and Lisa, if they are still around there. They were very warm and generous towards Richard and me, when we were in Oklahoma for Shovelfest III a couple of years ago. I know that they were planning to move to southern Arizona, so could even be living there by now.

It was beautiful weather as we rolled out of Peoria, en route to Iowa. We had decided to push a bit further between stops, today, in order to bang in a few more miles and enabling us to be within easy reach of Yutan, tomorrow morning We hit US 34, which would take us all the way through to a stop tonight in Iowa. When we stopped somewhere to refuel, Rich noticed an exhaust bracket on my bike had broken. Rich did a temporary band-aid fix, using locking wire, and we were heading west again. 

Our next rest and fuel stop was at Albia, Iowa, where we had coffee, snacked and rested our butt-cheeks. We'd just sorted our lodgings for the night, in Creston, IA, when to our surprise a guy on the forecourt knew we were heading to Yutan. In the conversation that followed, we learnt that his name was Dave. and that he was a new forum member. He asked us if we wanted to stop at his shop, which was on the way to Creston, to have a beer and do any maintenance the bikes needed. We gratefully accepted and set off the fifteen or so miles to his place in Melrose, as soon as we'd tanked up. 

Dave had a great workshop, which he and a friend had bought between them. They'd known the building since they were kids, when it was the grocery store. 

We explained what was needed for Rich to affect a warranty repair, hahaha, and Dave even went off to find some suitable scrap steel, from which to fabricate a bracket, leaving us in his shop drinking his beers. Rich made an effective fix, while we drank 'Bud' and chewed the fat. Dave showed us his Shovel, an immaculate FX which he'd had from new. Bracket done and beers downed, we said goodbye to Dave, who was coming to Yutan on Saturday, and departed for Creston and the Holiday Motel.

We parked our bikes and stowed our gear, before visiting the nearby Windrow Sports Bar and Restaurant, where we had a few pints, of course, and an 'eat as much as you like' Taco buffet. Kev and I got some mileage out of our English accents and we all had a good time. 

Kev went back to the motel, because he was knackered, but Rich and I weren’t far behind. Hopefully I'll now finish today's blog and post some pictures for the last couple of days, some of which I nicked from Richard's facebook posts. Thanks, Rich!

We covered over 400 miles today, Wednesdays Route