Ride from Rapid City to Sioux Falls to Cedar Rapids

A very hot and interesting ride from both Rapid City, SD to Sioux Falls, SD and then the next day over to Cedar Rapids. While in Rapid City, we got to see an interesting light show of T-Storms going through the area. We ended up holed into our hotel for the night and skipped dinner since we weren't going to venture out on foot nor bike. We left early on Sunday morning headed to Sioux Falls. We took a few stops as we were on the quest for a nice Harley ring. We started out stopping at all dealerships since Gillette Wyoming. Storms were trailing us most of the way. We cleared around Mitchell, SD--- home of the Corn Palace. We actually stopped in Mitchell for gas and this girl was upset because she couldn't find the Corn Palace. Certainly not on my list of things to do. We got into Sioux Falls between 3 and 3:30. We'd seen fighter jets from I-90 coming in. When we got closer, we realized it was an air show. The Blue Angels were flying right over us. Since we felt initially that this was going to be a boring ride, we put the cameras in to packs so we don't have any footage. We did see some great maneuvers such as 6 flying across and flipping over as they went skyward and then plunged towards the earth just to swoop up before crashing. It was awesome and I wish we got there earlier to see the whole show. By the time we got the hotel, the show was wrapping up. People were lined up along the road we were traveling and it looked like they were waiting for us (only in our dreams).
We checked into the hotel and went over to Buffalo Wild Wings on foot this time again. This time the staff wasn't as friendly as the one in Twin Falls, ID. We went from there over to a Sioux Falls Fighting Pheasant minor league baseball game and got great seats by the dugout. This was so "league of their own" style it wasn't funny. The people behind us were mad because they were asked to trade seats with some people in front of us where their row won free hot dogs. They felt they should get free hot dogs too. The kids who were involved in intra-inning challenges were all getting hurt and being carried off the field. That was more fun than the game. They were playing the Winnepeg Goldeyes. What's a Goldeye? And why does Winnepeg have a team when Canada doesn't support their pro baseball team?
Diane's been a great navigator and said we had to start out of Sioux City by 7 or else we would get severe T-Storms. We bolted out at 6:40 a.m. and set our first destination for the Perkins of Fairmont, MN where I had a company conference call. We then took off for Albert Lea HD, then Mason City HD (still no ring, but I did get a digital oil dipstick), then Charles City, IA and finally Cedar Rapids IA. All I can say is that Iowa has a lot of corn and soy. Attached are some pics from Diane. She loves farms. Also Cedar Rapids is the home of Quaker Oats. We have a pic (Pepsico) of that too. My company also has a large plant here, but we didn't stop by and take a pic.
Parked the bike at the Fairfield and got a call soon after checking in asking us to move the bike to under the front overhang. Apparently the heat was so high, the bike's kickstand was  pushing the pavement to the point where they felt it would fall over and damage the bike and the car next to it. I was very OK with putting it on brick and in front.
Tomorrow we're off to Indianapolis. Diane feels we'll be riding through some bad weather this time. Our quest for the ring continues.

If you look carefully, you could see the temp gauge on my bike is reading over 110F!!! Engine temp today reached 253F. Today we logged 385.6 miles and totaling 6367.2 miles for the trip