Loose Nuts

Minnesota - Land of 1000 Lakes and hog farms and farms with soybeans and corn and gently rolling hills. Notice that I called them farms, we are getting closer to home and I was told by a rancher in Wyoming that back east they're called farms because most of them just plant and produce something. I had made the mistake of asking him if he raised cattle on his farm and told him we raised long horned cattle on ours. He asked how many acres we had and I told him almost two hundred. Yeah, you've got a farm. Apparently, I didn't have enough zeros in the numbers of acres on my "farm," compared to his 10,000 acre ranch. LOL

I thought the wind was bad yesterday, but today it was brutal. I felt like I was blown all over today. Finally, about 3 this afternoon, we either outran it or it finally laid. What a relief! It did get rid of the smoke though!

We've traveled all over back country roads and through little towns the whole way on this trip. I love the "avoid highways" option on the gps. Joe said I dropped anchor a couple times today and kept him on his toes when Steve would make a turn without any advance warning.

At one point today, with cornfields on both sides of the road, there was a squirrel on the side of the road headed across. He stopped and turned to hit the side ditch when Steve when by. Being a squirrel, he spun and was coming back across when I went by, decided to jump (and I thought he was going to climb my leg) towards me, so I kicked and shook my leg. He ducked and I ran him over with my back tire. Stupid squirrel!

Before I go into maintenance..... I know, I know that several of you sent messages, made comments and even called when I posted that Joe's KIWI bike had developed a vibration with suggestions. Even Steve told him to check his engine mounts. Last night, when Joe came in he discovered that his front engine through bolt and nut was loose. So he tightened it up and it ran much better today. This evening, Joe and Steve tightened it even more and did the back one as well.

Both of them tightened their chains again and added oil.

We finished the day in Rochester, Minnesota. Tomorrow's another day.