We left Spearfish on Saturday. Today is Monday.  Earlier today we crossed the state line from South Dakota into Iowa. The day started with breakfast at the Best Western (a very limited selection breakfast). 336 miles (after an unexpected road closure) leaves us in Newton, Iowa. The temperatures started low enough that we were wearing jackets. By the time we pulled in to Newton, the temp had reached 91 degrees and the jackets were all safely riding somewhere strapped to our bikes.

After about 90 minutes we stopped for one last fill-up in South Dakota. If you travel on two wheels out in this part of the country, you should start looking for gas as soon as the tank reaches the half tank mark. That is good advice which I completely overlooked today.

The picture above shows us parked at the convenience store / gas station where I chose to pull in for a break. I was able to get some cold water but what I failed to get was gas for the bike. Mike and Max did the right thing and filled up. I looked at my bike and thought “we’re back in real civilization now and there will be gas everywhere”. OK – that’s wrong. Even in Iowa ther are long stretches of US highways (both US-20 and US-30) that have no services.

I was leading and kept going until I noticed that the little yellow gasoline pump icon on my bike (low fuel light) had lit up. No fear. I have my trusty (sometimes) Garmin GPS and it kept telling me gas was nearby. Unfortunately “nearby” in Garmin terms does not exactly line up with my idea of nearby. The bike has a range countdown function. Mine was showing I had about 28 miles of fuel left and Fort Dodge was 26 miles away. That math didn’t work for me. I was getting nervous.  Magically, the Garmin told me that there was a gas station in Coalville, Iowa which was only 11 miles away. That was somewhat reassuring. Garmin’s idea of a gas station and mine often don’t align. The convenience store at Coalville only had 85 octane for these Harley beasts which say they require at least 90 octane. OK – let me put 2 gallons in the tank and get that light turned off. That should get me enough miles to reach a real gas station.

As we pulled out of Coalville (with my 2 gallons in the tank), we hadn’t ridden a mile when we noticed a big, bright, shiny Sinclair station with all the octanes we needed. I was hard on the throttle and didn’t have enough time to get us pulled in. We were heading for the interstate and surely there would be “good” gas close once we hit the on-ramp.

I don’t want to drag this out anymore. My range countdown was showing 36 miles remaining when I saw a familiar “BP” logo on the next exit sign. I like BP gas – it used to be Amoco. In we went. This particular place was a combination convenience store, gas station, and Arby’s.

Tanks were filled and we were ready to roll out but Arby’s has strawberry shakes. Since there is not a Dairy Queen store in sight, i was required to order a strawberry shake. The bike has gas and I have ice cream. Life is good.

That is enough gas to get us to Newton, Iowa. Our route plans have been pretty reliable on this trip (Thanks Max). They have been a good mix of interstate highways and two-lane roads. Today we encountered the exception. The GPS was telling me that our hotel was a mere 21 miles down the road. Unfortunately, the road was missing a key part – a bridge over a small creek. OK. This should be easily resolved. We’ll just turn around, backtrack a little and find a different roadway. Did you know that there are a lot of unpaved roads in Iowa? Another valuable lesson was learned. We backtracked and then some. Several years ago I discovered that relying on roads with names like “F179” usually means it’s a farm road (unpaved with a loose gravel surface). Garmin needs to figure out a way to operate a GPS with voice commands. “Look for a numbered road / highway”. That would have been my instruction to that thing that talks to satellites (GPS). We did manage to find our way along Iowa 330 to Iowa 65 to Interstate 80. What once was 21 short miles took us 75 miles to accomplish. We pulled in to our chosen motel at about 4:00 PM. The air conditioning was working.

Mike requested a Mexican restaurant for dinner after a couple of hours resting in our cool air-conditioned rooms. The Los Amigos Restaurant was about 2 miles away. Back on the bikes. The food was good as befits our last dinner of this trip.

Garmin tells me I’m 501 miles from my home. I hope that thing knows what it’s talking about. I’ll be home tomorrow night. Thanks to my friends for the miles even if they involved a detour or three.

Your takeaways from today’s blog — always get gas when it’s available (even if you don’t think you need it) and when in doubt, look for a numbered road not one that starts with an F.