Greetings from the Heartland

The Bike Nazi is in Rochelle, IL, a smallish city an hour or so out of Chicago, following 4 days of driving down 2-lanes mostly, thru Montana, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and of course Illinois.  The objectives were/are:
- to retrieve a motorcycle trailer I bought on the Ebay way back last November and a friend has been storing ever since, and
- to get a view of the Fruited Plain.

The wind was brisk on Days 2 and 3 (Bozeman to Rapid City SD, and Rapid City to New Ulm, MN... made me wish I was bicycling (east-bound only!).  In fact, "brisk" is an understatement with regard to Rapid City - we started the night in our tent at a campground, but threw the air mattress in the back of the car, because gusty winds were pretty much blowing the tent over.  Horrible!  (I collapsed the tent deliberately so the poles wouldn't get turned into scrap metal.)

Iowa is supposed to be very bicycle-oriented, so I hope to see more rider/tourists than we've seen so far as we head back thru Iowa.

Gas prices are about the same in Rochelle as they are in Boise; at most places in between they are cheaper - as much as 35 cents/gallon cheaper in the wide open spaces of SD and MN.  (An oddity - mid-grade gas in many spots has been less than "regular," because mid-grade contains ethanol, and apparently they want to encourage ethanol consumption... since there's corn growing as far as the eye can see in many places.)

My "glutes" are pretty weary of sitting in a car seat day after day; 'twill be nice to be back in the saddle again... should happen by Sunday.

(Don't even think about burglarizing my house - we left surly people behind, and they have acquired an attack bunny in our absence.)