PAGE 77 www. FavoriteRidesAndDestinations. com | ridermagazine. com
FALL 2017 ISSUE 02 / VOL. 02
This page: A Harley-Davidson Road Glide with a tall windscreen was the perfect motorcycle for my mostly straight, rolling route across Iowa. With my feet on floorboards, a loping V-twin between my knees and a duffel serving as a back rest, traveling was easy. Right: Nebraska may be the Cornhusker State, but it’ s Iowa that produces the most corn of any state.
I was a little concerned about riding through Iowa in June. Nothing to do with bandits, earthquakes or extra-terrestrial beings, just two big rivers. Spring had brought flooding to middle America, with huge amounts of snow melting and heavy rains, and I was going to cross the two biggest rivers in this country: the Mississippi and the Missouri.( And I was hoping that the route I had chosen would not be washed out.)
The main attraction for me in Iowa stretched from river to river: the old Lincoln Highway, now known as U. S. Route 30. That was the original ocean-to-ocean road, conceived in 1913, constantly revised, but still pretty much a two-lane road in today’ s Iowa. By the way, the Iowa nickname of Hawkeye dates back to the 1830s when the land was still a territory, not yet a state, and honors a Sauk Indian, Chief Black Hawk.