Setting out from Dubuque we followed Hwy 53 south to Clinton, a small town on the Iowa shore resplendent with American flags (in anticipation of Memorial Day Weekend) with an old riverboat converted to a local theater.
Picking up Hwy 67 we continued south where we stopped in at the ‘Antique Archeology’ location (of the American Pickers fame on the History Channel) in Le Claire. Quite the collection of old artifacts and several fossilized motorcycles.
After Le Claire we crossed the Mississippi again, continuing around the Illinois side through East Moline and Andalusia before returning to Iowa at Muscatine. From there it was bye bye to Ole Miss as we needed to strike due west towards Des Moines.
We stopped for a coffee break in Washington Iowa, noting that Washington is a popular town/ city name in the US, yielding a Washington in each of twenty four states . The proliferation of Washington place names seems only matched by the profligate spending of the federal government in Washington DC, a controversial topic over our first week of the trip as politicians negotiate an increase in the debt limit so that spending can continue and the massive IOU owes to debtors worldwide can continue to grow.
Continuing west we angled slightly northwest on Hwy 163 before finishing the day’s trip in Des Moines.