A Detour into Iowa

We took down in the rain this morning, never a great experience.  To be honest though, considering how many times we have set up and taken down the trailer on this adventure, we cannot complain.

In an attempt to avoid Interstate 90 today, we went slightly south before heading east.  It took us into a new State for us, Iowa.  My preconceived idea was that we would see a lot of corn…it did not disappoint.  We spent most of the day within about 10 miles of the Minnesota border.  This region of Iowa grows 2 crops, corn and soybeans.  We are not sure how they get away with a 2 crop rotation but they do.  The black soil grows fantastic looking crops, probably better than anywhere else we have been.  Of course, thousands of acres of corn and soybeans come with the customary elevator systems, some extremely large.  We also saw lots of pig barns today, again more than anywhere else we have traveled.  One of the unique things we saw today was 2 different ethanol plants.  We are not sure what they were burning to produce ethanol from the corn, but the smokestacks were spewing out some nasty looking stuff.

We are in the Albert Lea KOA in Minnesota.  We are surrounded by corn fields and soybean fields.  Unfortunately, Interstate 90 is on our 4th side.  This seems to be a trend for the location of many of these parks!

Distance Traveled = 328 km.  Wildlife Sightings = Chipping Sparrow, White Pelican, Tundra Swan, Kingfisher, Eastern Kingbird, Eurasian-collared Dove, Red-tailed Hawk, Kestrel, Turkey Vulture, House Sparrow, Red-winged Blackbird, Robin.


One of the hundreds of butterflies today


Corn


Soybeans


State Line Cooperative Elevators


Windmills...Like Ontario these things are wasting good agricultural land and are way too close to peoples houses!!!

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