Day 5 ( Another travel day) Rock Island, Illinois to North Sioux City, South Dakota 386 miles (total miles 1603.6)  We crossed the Mississippi into Iowa about 9:15 this morning. The road network in Iowa is almost completely a N/S & E/W grid.  WE moved across an ever expanding patchwork of corn & soybean fields.  The size of everything increased.  The size of the fields, the equipment, the silos and the grain elevators. At a rest stop in the morning we talked to a truck driver hauling a brand new John Deere seed planter.  He told us stories about the many pieces he had moved and how significant JD is to Iowa.  It's largest employer by far.  One farm he hauled to regularly was farming 38,000 acres.
 ( That's over twice the size of the Town of Easton).  He listed the equipment that they bought each year starting with 3 combines valued at $250 K each, over a dozen seed planters, 20 tractors and at least 2 dozen other major implements.  Due to some amount of construction, and a few disagreements between the GPS lady and me, we didn't arrive in Sioux City until almost 6PM. a long day!
Again the wind was always there and increased as the day went on.

                                                     
                                                               the new JD Seeder
                                   (can you picture the size of the tractor that would pull this!)

                                                  your guess is as good as mine... but it was bigggg!!!

               
                                                a typical grain elevator.