5. Still in Iowa

Nov 25 continued

     Evidently not!  Besides it was a little brisk to go out of our way to see a parade.  We followed Hwy 52 along the river, the only spot we had talked about stopping at was Ball Town Iowa, one of the most scenic views of the river bottoms.  It is also the home of  Breitbach's Country Dining one of oldest restaurants in Iowa,  it has burned to the ground at least twice.  I especially enjoy their vinegary German salads.
       We had a little malfunction ( not a wardrobe) a faulty ground,  we repaired it along the road a mile or two before Ball town and I was surprised to see that a couple stopped to give us a hand, I thought because of the way we were dressed I thought we might be a little intimidating.  Turn's out he rode a Harley, so nothing seemed to bother him.

One of the questions we get is how we stay warm, well sometimes we don't.   We are dressed in multiple layers, we both wear a heated jacket liner that plugs into our bike and is controlled with a dual dial.  The passenger runs the controller so you want to stay on good terms with them.  We then wear winter clothes over to stop the heat loss from the wind.  In bitter cold we wear face masks under our helmets.  Face shields block the wind from our face's.   I have always said that 82 degrees with the sun shining is the perfect riding weather.  Now you hit 18 degrees at  highway speeds and you have some real wind chill.  I have added  dual element heat coils to the seats and just days before we left we added heating elements to the hand grips.  If the wind is not coming from the side we can stay quite comfortable.  We stop often for hot chocholate and soup.
    As we were about to stop for the evening we went to a Perkins, a couple stopped to talk to us , of course we were having hot chocolate and soup,  They were celebrating their 7th anniversary  he had been married before for 62 years and she 50, both had lost their spouses.  Makes you feel good. Sometimes you meet opposites at the same location.  An example:  a man walked by and said, you must be the ones on that motorcycle.  You must be from Minnesota or Wisconsin.?   Where you headed?  We replied, Someplace warm.   He said it will be warmer when you get to Belize.  ( Evidently the fugitive software billionaire had got advice from him also.)  Now you have to remember that 1. My brain was cold.  2.  We had seen every name their was for towns including Cuba and Mexico in Missouri.  So I said to him, how far is that?  The smart alec said 5000 miles you have to go thru Mexico and into South America.   I looked it up, it is actually in central America, I only thought their was a North and South, see you can learn things from blogs.  Anyway we won’t be going there on this trip, nor France Ruthie had a situation there once.
At least tonight we are warm and safe in Eldridge Iowa.