Day One: Friday, July 20

We awoke to a bad weather forecast. Tornados hit Iowa the day before, and the storms were moving east into our direction of travel. Randal, who we fondly call "Magellan," looked at his iPad, saw a window of opportunity to miss much of the rain, and we skipped breakfast and began our adventure.

To travel on motorcycles, you need to be flexible.

"Tornadoes Strike Several Iowa Towns, Leaving Significant Damage; At Least 17 Injured"

We drove west on the Lincoln Highway - one of the earliest transcontinental highways for automobiles across the United States, formally dedicated on October 31, 1913.

The Lincoln Highway ran coast-to-coast from New York City west to San Francisco preceding the Interstate Highways.

In many of the towns in Illinois along the Lincoln Highway, they celebrate the history and significance of the Road with murals, like that in DeKalb. They also preserve the history of the Road like the Standard Oil service station in Rochelle.

We had two options for our travels further west: the Lincoln Highway to our lodging for the first night (which went through the tornado corridor), or to head north and try to work our way around the storms. (Note the rain gear). We opted to go north. In doing so, we rode the Great River Road - a scenic byway along the Mississippi River and passed the Mississippi Palisades - cliff structures along the river.

We traveled north to Galena, past the home of U.S. Grant, and through the fantastic river town of Dubuque, Iowa. We stopped at the "Field of Dreams" movie site - "Build it and they will come." They built it, and we came. In fact, we took on selfie on the pitcher's mound.

From there, we drove through 300 miles of corn and soybeans to Sioux City, Iowa.

Total mileage for the day was 500 miles. The Millennium Falcon's fuel burn was 36 miles per gallon - less than my son's Honda.

Tomorrow, the Outlaw Trail and the Badlands.