Wednesday August 28 ... Ironwood, Michigan to Grand Forks, North Dakota

Another day spent mostly making time on the back of the bike, though we did particularly enjoy one little town, Ashland, Wisconsin, that we went through shortly after leaving Ironwood.  It is now primarily a recreation focused town, but once had huge docks where in the late 19th century millions of tons of timber and iron ore crossed through.  We drove through the town and I took lots of great pics...

Duluth, Minnesota was the next major centre we passed through.  We had originally planned to stop and walk along the waterfront but when we got into the city we were both surprised by all the smog...in addition to the bad smells, we both felt nauseous.  Grain elevators, ore docks and shipyards line the harbour of this large Lake Superior port...not sure where the smells were coming from.  Later I googled pollution for the city and was informed its one of the best in the state in terms of how little pollution there is but you could have fooled us!  You can see the smog in these photos....perhaps we just hit the city on a particularly bad day...

The map we had indicated there were only three more towns before our destination of Grand Forks, but it turns out there were many small towns along the way, so we saw lots of rural countryside and I snapped more pics from my perch on the back of the gold wing...:)

Loved this water tower's paint job...

Took this one in the town of Crookston, in honour of Easton's dad...last name Crooks! :)

This appeared to be a row of trees planted we thought as a potential wind break...wonder if they'll do the job seeing as they have no foliage on the bottom! :)

We think these are ripening soybeans...the only crop we haven't been able to definitively identify.  I did wonder why they were irrigating them and Harry said it could have been because they were under stress because of the high temperatures...

Some big farming operations...

We rode through a heat wave...temps up to 35' over the course of the day and high humidity.  Schools have been "in" this week but some of them were closing early because of the high temps and the fact that they are not air conditioned.  We both felt like dish rags by the time we arrived in Grand Forks.  After refreshing showers it was time for a light supper at a nearby hotel restaurant, a short walk and then time to call it a night.