We made it halfway. This was the first year we didn’t get stuck in a sweltering traffic jam, our legs cooking on the exhaust pipes. Because of that, we made decent time, arriving in Walnut, IA around 7:30pm, CST. It actually did not feel like that long of a day, though we’d been on the road almost 13 hours. About 50 miles east of Des Moines, the skies darkened and the rain came, like needles in our skin at 70 mph. We stopped to put on rain gear, and I’d forgotten to roll up and velcro the hood on mine, which whapped me in the face for the next 50 miles. Sigh.
Luckily, the weather did not last and we were back on dry pavement soon enough. The dry, warm air felt great after shivering to the bone through the rain and we cruised along under a swirling mass of bluish gray clouds. The rain gear came off at the next stop, and I found that the velcro on my hood had embedded itself in my hair. Nice.
At our next gas stop, we were told by several older locals about this “huge rock” just down the road. Lots of people always there, he repaints it all the time.. okay.. So we continued down I-90 to State Road 25, and turned south for about a mile and a half. We expected a huge boulder near a gravel pit that got redecorated every Friday night by farm kids with a couple of spray cans and a 12 pack. What we found was The Freedom Rock, and it was awesome. www.thefreedomrock.com
Painted by Ray “Bubba” Sorensen II, the freedom rock is about eight feet tall and repainted every Memorial Day to pay tribute to those who fought for our freedom. His work is awesome, and very humbling. Check it out also on Facebook and Twitter.
About 40 miles down the road was our destination for the night, the Super 8 in Walnut, our halfway point every year on our trip to Sturgis. We were happy to see that Emma Jean’s Restaurant and Lounge had taken up residency in the old Villager restaurant, which stood vacant last year in the large parking area of the motel. I was even more surprised to happily snatch up the last copy of Thunder Roads Iowa from their entrance!
Tomorrow we will roll into the land of our dreams, even more excited than we were yesterday to leave. I can’t wait to share the rest of our trip with you!
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