Yesterday began with an 8AM tour of the John Deere tractor factory in Waterloo, IA. The factory is the second largest building under roof (50 acres) in the United States, surpassed only by a Boeing facility in Seattle. The tour was fascinating and I had to constantly grab Sally's sleeve to keep her from climbing on one of the big green machines and driving off. John Deere only builds tractors to fill specific orders; nothing is built for inventory. They have a "gold key" program whereby customers can visit the plant on the day their tractor is assembled and actually start it and drive it off of the assembly line. After the tour we visited friends Gib and Jan Glasson before heading north where we spent the night at Calmar, IA in the parking lot of Northern Iowa Community College. Just to add to the excitement, the security guard informed us that a tornado had been spotted some 40 miles west, but he thought that it was going to miss us! This morning we will visit the clock museum in Spillville, IA (pop. 386) before heading off to Lanesboro, Minnesota for a few days of biking on their spectacular network of bicycle trails.
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