Date: 9/2/2019
Miles: 420
We left Forest City, Iowa and it was another overcast morning. We made up a lot of miles quickly. While riding I noticed what seems to be some sort of process plant. As we got closer to the entrance, it was a Valero. That was cool to see. We kept on moving along and happened to stop to fill up and I really had to use the restroom. It was in Spirit Lake, Iowa. This was the original Victory Motorcycle production town. So that was something that I learned. There is also an Indian motorcycle production facility there too.
From there we kept hammering and made it to South Dakota after crossing Big Sioux River. We never did see a sign for entering the state. That’s probably because we’re taking all these backroad state roads. Anyway, we took a ride into Sioux Falls and had lunch. It was pretty funny. We got there and each ordered a the “large” beer. When the waitress came out, she had three 34oz mugs. We were taken back a bit, but we definitely took our time and enjoyed them. Now for those of you that don’t know, Sioux Falls is the largest city in South Dakota with a population of about 180,000 people.
From Sioux Falls, we headed west on route 47. For a while there were some serious cross winds. The speed limit was 65 so we were cruising right along but having all the additional luggage on the bikes, it was like having a sail catch all the wind. And when a truck would fly by in the opposite direction, it was TURBULENT! That was quite annoying, but we kept pushing. It was funny too – there were a lot of trucks towing boats in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. We thought it was really odd, but later we found out there it’s because of the Missouri River and a local lake.
While pushing along 47, the sun was getting intense. We came I to a little town and all of the sudden Gabe darted off into an ice cream place – Boon’s Drive In. Gabe’s been eager to get ice cream. Christian and I don’t mind though. It gives us an excuse to have some ice cream too!
Luckily we did we stayed on 47 though. It was pretty flat for a while but once we crossed the Missouri River the landscape changed. Hills came out of nowhere. There were so many windy, twisty turns. It was a real nice change of pace after riding hours on relatively flat, straight roads for most of the day. It was an amazing ride and full of beautiful landscape and rolling hills and…of course…more corn. Haha. There were also a MASSIVE amounts of hay bails! We thought there were endless fields full of crop until we reached South Dakota. It’s even more vast!
This beautiful landscape lasted a while until we reached I-90 where it started to flatten out. We filled up one last time and blasted west on I-90 into Murdo, SD where we stopped for the night. Out here the speed limit is 80mph. It was a long day and we did a lot of miles. Then Christian and I enjoyed a few beers while sitting outside the Super 8 and even saw a praying mantis!
Adventures of Matty Q 