8-9-12 Day 13 Council Bluffs, IA to Danville, IL

Got up to a cool grey day, about 60 degrees and basically like a heavy mist/fog. Left the hotel around 7am and went west on 80. Had a long sleeve shirt & a sweatshirt on and was comfortable. The radar showed random showers/thunderstorms possible. The weather stayed the same through IA and as we crossed the Mississippi River it was as if someone turned a switch and on, as on the east side the sun was out and it was in the upper 80's! We stopped for gas & lunch in a little town called Andover, IL. After lunch we continued on 80W. The radar showed we would be running into showers and sure enough about a 1/2 hour down the road we saw the sky turn dark and a wall of water that we were heading into. We pulled over and put on the rain gear. We took back off and 5 minutes later the rains were over and we are now cooking in our suits but the radar still shows showers all around. After about 30 minutes we are dying in the hot weather with our gear on so we pull into a rest area and most of us take the suits off. We lucked out as for the next 150 miles we could see the rain immediately to our left as shown in the following pics. If the road had been 150 - 200 yards North we would of been soaked!!!!

we could see the wall of water coming down!

We pulled into the hotel about 5 pm with dark skys all around and a few minutes later it started to rain! The hotel let us keep the bikes under the canopy! Today was about a 520 mile day and I've turned slightly over 4000 miles since I left. After our daily combo pool/cocktail hour we grabbed a taxi to go to dinner cause it was still raining. Danville is right at the border of IL & IN. We had been given a dinner recommendation to go to the I & I Stateline Tavern which is right on the border hence the name. They claim some peoples phone will switch between time zones! The food was awesome. At this point we're basically half way home. Weather looks touch & go for tomorrow. One thing I have failed to mention is what we've all been hearing about the drought out west. Well we can attest to the severity. All the corn we've seen in WI, MN, SD & most of Iowa is brown and the cattle watering holes are either dry or very close to dry. We saw a fence crew taking the oppurtunity of fixing fences along I-90 in the areas that are usually underwater! Things were not so bad through the east end of IA & IL and heading east from there.