Corn........Drove 90 west for about an hour then decided to detour south to pick up Iowa as it’s a state as I haven’t visited yet.....it was worth it. I parked the camper on the roadside in the middle of miles of corn and climbed up on the roof. All I could hear was the wind ruffling the leaves of corn on the stalks. Loved it. Pulled over later and spoke with a few farmers loading trucks with last years corn out of these giant silos.....they said they keep it in the silos til the price is best then sell it all off. They said all the rain this year was going to create a bumper crop of corn and soybeans. I guessed that one bushel of corn got him $5.....he was getting $3.50 a bushel. The corn was to be used as fuel, oils and feed....the excess was shipped to the coast and shipped to China or Europe.
I asked him what his biggest nightmare would be as a farmer......he said.....hail. Apparently a hail storm can beat the corn stalks down to the ground. He actually had hail insurance in case this happened. He asked me as many questions as I asked him. My take on him was that despite the fact that he was a “farmer” he had a keen business sense, the kind of business sense that a guy would have that worked in some office building in downtown Boston. He was sharp. We ended by saying that each of us had our roles in this country as different as they were....... but when he was in school, his favorite class was gym.
Red Lobster in America’s heartland????......you bet. Sioux City, SD for lunch.
The Corn Palace.....pretty neat.....Had popcorn and checked it out......love the idea of watching a high school basketball game in there in the winter......that’d be pretty cool.
Some guy gave me the finger on the way out of town.....I suppose that had to happen at some point......Got some groceries and hit the road.
Then something wacky happened......a grouse flew out in front of the truck and I nailed it. It slammed into the front bumper and I pulled over. There were a few very minor cracks in this plastic grill type thing but the license plate was bent pretty badly. I twisted it back into shape and kept moving. I think that if the bird hit any other part of the grill more damage would have been done.....but it hit the plate dead center. Lucky I thought. Never heard or saw what happened to the bird......I don’t think thongs worked out well for him though.
Grasslands......I thought I would like driving through the South Dakota grasslands and I did. You can see for miles with almost no trees. You get out to rest and it’s just you, the grass, and the wind. I’ve been lucky enough to actually have my camera with me during some of the best sunsets I’ve ever seen......tonight was no exception.
No overnight parking at rest stops in South Dakota......sounds silly to me. Hit a Flying J gas station instead.
I asked him what his biggest nightmare would be as a farmer......he said.....hail. Apparently a hail storm can beat the corn stalks down to the ground. He actually had hail insurance in case this happened. He asked me as many questions as I asked him. My take on him was that despite the fact that he was a “farmer” he had a keen business sense, the kind of business sense that a guy would have that worked in some office building in downtown Boston. He was sharp. We ended by saying that each of us had our roles in this country as different as they were....... but when he was in school, his favorite class was gym.
Red Lobster in America’s heartland????......you bet. Sioux City, SD for lunch.
The Corn Palace.....pretty neat.....Had popcorn and checked it out......love the idea of watching a high school basketball game in there in the winter......that’d be pretty cool.
Some guy gave me the finger on the way out of town.....I suppose that had to happen at some point......Got some groceries and hit the road.
Then something wacky happened......a grouse flew out in front of the truck and I nailed it. It slammed into the front bumper and I pulled over. There were a few very minor cracks in this plastic grill type thing but the license plate was bent pretty badly. I twisted it back into shape and kept moving. I think that if the bird hit any other part of the grill more damage would have been done.....but it hit the plate dead center. Lucky I thought. Never heard or saw what happened to the bird......I don’t think thongs worked out well for him though.
Grasslands......I thought I would like driving through the South Dakota grasslands and I did. You can see for miles with almost no trees. You get out to rest and it’s just you, the grass, and the wind. I’ve been lucky enough to actually have my camera with me during some of the best sunsets I’ve ever seen......tonight was no exception.
No overnight parking at rest stops in South Dakota......sounds silly to me. Hit a Flying J gas station instead.
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