Tuesday - July 26 2022 - Cedar Rapids IA to Freemont NE

 

John Deere Museum day!!

Another great breakfast at the hotel this morning, then fill up with $3.97 gas, then a short ride to Waterloo IA where the John Deere History and Engine Museum is located. This place traces John Deere, born in Rutland VT and a blacksmith in Middlebury and Vergennes VT, from his Vermont roots to Iowa. He learned blacksmithing in Vermont and moved to Iowa in 1840 something. 

He saw them using cast iron plows where the wet soil stuck to the cast iron metal blade and fashioned at smooth steel blade instead. The rest is history. He made a ton of plows and his son took over the business. His son invented a corn planter and about that time the internal combustion engine started to be introduced. As was explained to us, John Deere was good at perfecting, selling and supporting products, not necessarily innovating. They were slow to accept the internal combustion engine and ended up buying the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company in 1918. 

The museum does a great job pointing out the evolution of humans and energy. From pure manual labor to using animals to power things and then to the internal combustion engine. As one exhibit pointed out, the 1-1/2 hp engine did the work of 12 men, making their adoption obvious.

One of the guides there pointed out that kerosene was the first fuel followed by diesel, gasoline and liquid propane. Kerosene and propane disappeared and gas and diesel won out.

John Deere's timing and execution was perfect and they pride themselves on selling and supporting their products cradle to grave. No wonder all we saw all day crossing Iowa was green tractors.

Next order of business is to head west and find the Lincoln Highway. Lincoln Highway is the first cross country road going from New York City to San Francisco and crosses the entire state of Iowa. 80% of it is still intact in Iowas and we quickly found it chased it the rest of the day. Rt30 is the newest iteration of it so we spent the rest of the day following the Lincoln Highway signes that zig-zagged all around Rt 30. Most of it is paved but a lot of it is gravel. When you are on the original road you run into old filling stations and vintage leftover stuff.

We crossed the Missouri River at the end of the day (on Rt30) and landed in Fremont Nebraska. Mexican place and ice cream and bed.

We gotta come back and spend more time!