We left Mound City and headed north toward Iowa’s eastern border along the Missouri. We paid our respects to Sgt. Floyd in Council Bluffs. The Sergeant was the only member of the original L&C expedition to perish. He died in great pain from what is now thought to have been appendicitis, a condition not treatable in those days with the limited skills and knowledge of the expedition members. He’s buried near the spot a monument was raised to commemorate the expedition itself as well as his unfortunate infection. Let this be a lesson to you, go camping only in the company of surgeons.
We continued northwest along I-29 which offers many fine views of the Missouri River toward the town of Platte, SD. Along the way, we stopped in Vermillion, SD and a man accosted me with the question, “Is that your trunk?” I had earplugs in at the time and answered back, “You mean that truck?”, pointing toward Dad’s pick-up. The man was visibly confounded then said something like, “No, consarn it—the TRUNK” as if saying it louder would make the meaning clear to me. He had a point because I had the ear-plugs in, but it still sounded like “trunk”, so I told him the truck didn’t have a trunk. About to burst a blood vessel, the man pointed and said, “Noooo, that MOTORCYCLE”, pronouncing the “cycle” part like “sickle”. Suddenly, everything became clear—he’d been saying “Trump”, a shorthand name for Triumph motorcycles…or sickles. We chatted amiably after that for a few minutes, sipping coffee and reminiscing over old times we had never shared. You meet a lot of wonderful folks on the road.
A little further up the road, we found ourselves behind two halves of a pre-fab (modular) home loaded onto two tractor-trailer rigs. These things are not built to be aerodynamic on the highway and were being hauled at the unreasonable speed of 65 MPH along a two- lane. The wind turbulence they generated was causing buffeting that was a true test of my stamina and common sense. I tried easing back, but the turbulence followed behind several hundred feet and I was about to be struck from behind by a most thoughtful motorist in a following vehicle. I didn’t want to try “drafting” them by following closely as a sudden unexpected stop on their part could put me and the bike square in the kitchen or bathtub. As traffic engineers often do, this stretch of highway was striped at the center in a way that made it impossible to pass these vehicles for several miles. Coupled with the rises and drops in the roadway, the situation was only worsening.
When the state’s paint for stripes budget must have been exhausted and the solid lines turned to dashed ones, I checked the way and seeing it clear, opened the throttle and passed both house halves as we rode uphill, then surged ahead. Dad couldn’t keep up with me, so I pulled over to await him a couple of miles ahead, enjoying a bottled water (no RC Cola in this part of the country, but they did have Hamm’s beer) and a Moon Pie. About 15 minutes passed and I chuckled and waved as he rode by in the truck. He had managed to pass the rearmost house half and was sandwiched between the two house halves. He pulled over up the road as the two house halves turned-off to go wherever they were to be joined. We caught up about ten miles later in a Town Where They Had No Maps, so I cannot tell you what it was called. Might have been one of those left-over Cold War things where they took Russians and tried to raise them as Americans with the intent of turning them into very convincing spies.
The day ended in Platte…and Thatte’s Thatte.
Here’s the day’s route:
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