Day 105 - Sheldon to Spencer - Two Far 2021 - Sooo... Far

July 22, 2021

Day 105 - Sheldon to Spencer

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We awoke this morning to unexpected rain showers. They were forecast to end by 10:00, so we enjoyed a lazy morning while waiting for the rain to pass. We were ready to ride at 10:00, but there was still some light rain. After discussing the options, we decided to put on the rain covers and take off. By the time we had all the panniers covered, the rain had completely stopped and we had a dry ride the whole day.

We rode ten miles to Sanborn, took a little break at Casey's, and then rode through downtown.

As is the case with so many small towns, Sanborn began as a railroad town.

After riding though the business disctrict, we went to the Yesterdays Memories Museum. The museum is owned by Vander Haag, Inc. which is a large used truck and truck parts dealer with 8 locations in 5 states. In the old days, we would just say they have a big truck junkyard business, but it is much more than that. The Vander Haag family members have been collectors of old trucks, old cars and a very diverse variety of "old stuff". The retired senior member of the family, John Vander Haag, was at the museum today and spent some time showing us around. It was he who started collecting trucks and cars years ago.

This is the center room of the museum. There are a total of seven buildings.

This is the truck that started John's collection.

This was the oddest looking truck on the main floor, I thought. A 1963 Corvair "Rampside"

Image not found :( — A very strange design!

Some of the family members have collected classic cars, as well as trucks.

Kerry walked through the other buildings full of all kinds of trucks.

There was an extensive collection of old fire trucks - most of them were from surrounding towns.

A majority of the trucks on display have been restored. Each restored truck had a data sheet containing the date, milage and level of restoration as well as the person / company who did the restoration. A lot of the trucks looked better than new.

The buildings (and trucks) went on and on. The collection is still growing and there is a new 400' x 100' building under construction to house even more trucks!

While Kerry was checking out all the trucks, I went upstairs of the main building where there was an eclectic collection of thousands of items. In search of something novel, I found this - a bedpan collection!

We're still in Iowa, so we looked at many miles of farms again today. It is usually a very calm and relaxing ride through all the agriculture, but today we had to deal with a shoulder ruined by rumble strips along most of the route.

We see many of these corn and soybean test plots.

And we saw wind turbines today for the first time in at least a week, I think.

We're spending tonight and tomorrow night in Spencer.

The ride into town was through a beautiful historic residential area.

There were many restored large old homes.

There were a few mansion size houses, but they were hidden behind large trees, so I didn't get any good pictures of them.

That neighborhood opened onto the old downtown business district, which was also very nice.

Tomorrow, we plan to visit Spencer's historical museum. I hope that they don't have any trucks!

Today's ride: 41 miles (66 km)
Total: 3,924 miles (6,315 km)

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Mike ObermeyerThanks again for all the great pictures.
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