Day 3...Illinois, Iowa and South Dakota

Today we were able to go to the "Rusty Palace" also known as the John Deere World Headquarters.  It was fun to let the kids see all of the equipment and climb in for a few photos...make that a lot of photos!!  We met this really wonderful greeter there who provided lots of helpful info for when we go to Yellowstone....she had been there several times.  I plan on looking her up when we get back and sending her some pictures.  She loved the kids, especially Haley whom she wanted to take home with her.  It is really nice to meet great people along the way!!

  After visiting the display floor we took time to go into Iowa and see a friend....Jay's old boss lives in Iowa now so we were able to visit with him a few minutes which was very nice.

We had more bad weather today than we have had the whole trip.  A lot of serious thunderstorms along the way.  I had purchased a weather radio before leaving and have been impressed with the alert system, which does scare you a little when it comes on.  We are not big on radio station flipping so this was the only way to solve the problem of knowing if something was in our area.

We were driving along the Interstate in Iowa (where there is NOTHING to do) and happened to see a sign for where John Wayne was born.  Now my Grandaddy and my Daddy are HUGE John Wayne fans so we had to just ride by and see the place.




As we were getting off I saw a sign for the Bridges of Madison County...as in the movie...and thought it would be neat to see a couple while we were here.  Amazing what is out in the middle of nowhere!!



Jay said a few times that we should take a pic of the road because in Iowa you may be the only person on the Interstate!!!  We were amazed...it was the equivalent of driving down I-40 at 3 in the morning, but I still think you would see more people on 40 at that time!


We made it into South Dakota for the night and checked into our room.  About 1:00 am we had a Horrible storm with significant hale.  Needless to say it woke Jay and I up.  We were scrambling to find the forecast so we would know if a tornado was coming.  The kids slept right through it.....ahhh the joy of being a kid!!!