Endless Corn

Theresa started the day with a bang. Note to self: Never open a container of yogurt that spent the day in a cooler without ice. The cultures inside grow at a tropical rate, un-restrained by refrigeration, to pressurize the vessel. The sudden release of pressure is sufficient to spray paint the bathroom mirror with the strawberry and kiwi flavored confection to the dismay of the opener. See photo if reminding is needed.

Today we drove from Mitchell, South Dakota and it's Corn Palace, through Western Nebraska to Sioux City, Iowa. This city touches three states and driving through Nebraska gives us state #48 in our 50 state quest. We still have to visit Kentucky and Hawaii. Kentucky is on the way home and Hawaii is the destination of our March 2010 cruise. The bucket list is getting shorter.

The best way to describe today's drive is boring, yet impressive. Boring because the fields of corn, soybeans, and various other crops are miles long. Impressive because the fields are miles long. Sometimes they look endless. Corn from horizon to horizon as far as the eye can see with only a thin ribbon of asphalt intruding on the total dominance of the land. You sometimes drive for miles before seeing another human, usually in an opposing car and since everybody drives at 65 mph or faster, they pass so quickly you can't tell much about them. When you do pass someone slow enough for facial recognition, they often wave. I don't know if it's because we are on a motorcycle, bikers almost always wave at each other, or because here, where people are so rare, you wave because you share humanity. For the last several days, I can't remember stopping for any reason, gas, soda, shopping, bathroom, where someone didn't strike up a conversation. Sometimes we ask about something, more often they ask about the Florida Tag, the bike, the trailer, or just where we've been. The people we've met on this trip are the real highlight. They go so far to offer directions, good wishes, tall tales, humor, and affection. Many tell us we are living their dream we often feel a little like celebrities.

When we needed gas today, the small town of Wynot, Nebraska, population 191, showed up on the GPS as having the one service station near our path; the Wynot Oil Company. It felt like we had passed through some kind of time warp, the Gold Wing magically transporting us back to 1955. The full service gas station had old fashioned, pre credit card, pumps, manned by a real service station attendant with official Wynot Oil Co. hat and shirt. The attached garage looked like a 1950s garage too. It was large and had an example of every tool yet invented, to include all the strange things farmers use. They are probably capable of fixing anything.

A farm machine like none I've seen was swallowing down 120 gallons of diesel fuel at a nearby pump. It had four 6 foot tall tires and long mechanical arms that could extend out to give the monster a 100 foot width. The operator told me it was a sprayer and invited me to climb up to the cab to check it out. Cool!

The Ag-Chem RoGator 1084 is a $200,000 mechanical marvel that can spray a field with anti-bad-bug juice in no time flat. My view from 13 feet up made everything below look tiny. It was like sitting on top of your house, looking at the cars in the street. The air conditioned, computerized, Sirius Radio, air shocked bucket seat equipped cab was as comfortable as a Cadillac. A touch screen computer displays a detailed map of the customer's field and programmes the machine to apply the correct amount of bug juice as a precision GPS drives on autopilot. When the operator demonstrated the computer it looked just like any Windows XP computer but the specialty software was very cool. I suspect you could almost program it to go alone to do the job and return to park itself.

See http://www.agchem.com/default.cfm/PID=1.13.2.1 for details of this amazing tool.

The boom arms extend to cover a 100 foot wide pattern as it sprays it's 1080 gallons of chemical payload.

The right hand controller looked like something from a fighter jet offering one hand direction of all the spraying. The GPS in the RoGator is accurate to one foot but you can buy a more accurate signal from ground based services that improve the accuracy to less than one inch! How'd you like to thread a needle on autopilot with a machine that's bigger than your house? When it drove away, consuming most of the street, I had to admire it's grace and beauty of the engineering that allowed this house sized monster, drive down a city street as easily as a Volkswagen. These farm boys sure have some cool toys. It had a magnificent stereo too.

Tonight we are settled into a comfortable Days Inn, purloined via Hotwire for a mere $44 plus tax! I like this Hotwire thing. Looking ahead to Chicago, we are seeing 4 Star hotels for under $100 a night. I expect we will live well while the tent on our camper is being replaced at the factory. If we can leave Chicago on Monday, we will nose the Honda Southbound toward Florida, seeking adventure and education as we go. Maybe I'll invent a new word for our travels, Eduventure.