Day 02 - Brownsburg, IL to Omaha NE

Today would be our longest mileage day, over 600. We got breakfast at our hotel, the Hampton Inn Brownsburg, right at 6am so we could be out the door at 7am. It was cold this morning, only 59 degrees. Rob had to fill the trailer tires with 2 pounds of air and realized the trailer battery wasn’t working. He got out his Slime tire compressor, but first turned on the bike to see if it would charge the trailer battery. It did, so he was able to more conveniently fill the tires. Michele was also finishing packing up to go so we left 15-20 minutes late. Just down the road at the gas station we got this surprise.

It was a nice morning for a balloon ride. With the bikes fueled up we were quickly on Interstate 74. We would be on this highway most of the morning, making our way across Indiana into Illinois, heading northwest. Not far out of town we came across a turned over truck that had leaked diesel fuel onto the highway. At this early hour there was no traffic so we had the road to ourselves for a long while. We got a chuckle over this billboard.

Soon we were in Illinois and enjoyed the farm views.

Jerry spotted a small patch of sunflowers in front of a huge corn field.

We stopped for a break and fuel mid-morning. Jerry added air to his front tire. A few other bikers took a break at the same fuel stop. We saw tons of bikers heading East today coming back from the Sturgis Rally. We rode another hour or so and stopped in Woodhull, Illinois for lunch at Subway.

We crossed the Mighty Mississippi into Iowa after lunch.

This interesting place featured farm equipment.

All morning and most of the afternoon we were surrounded by cornfields and huge windmill farms. 

We also saw what we think were its base parts up close.

Rob found a fun roadside attraction, Jesse James historical monument to the first train robbery in the west located in Adair, Illinois, just off Interstate 80.

It’s a neat spot in the middle of farms.

An hour and a half later we arrived in Omaha.

We drove 10 minutes to our hotel in La Vista, Nebraska. The afternoon got to 90 degrees and luckily the sun was mostly hidden by clouds. The last 200 miles were fairly warm today. We changed to Central time zone today. After a quick freshen up, we walked to Beyond Golf Bar and Kitchen for dinner. The service was great and the food equally so. Afterward we got ice cream at Sonic, then came back to the hotel. Tomorrow morning there could be rain when we leave. We have conflicting weather apps, which one will be correct?