99 C Counties ount ou nttie i s to o ttour ourr onn tthe ou hee bbike, ike, ik e 999 e, 9 co coun counties unti un ties ti es tto o to tour tour, ur,, ur take one down, drive on around, 54 counties to tour on the bike. A few years back, a summer riding goal was to ride through each one of the counties of Iowa, and what was found was a wealth of interest and beauty. Each month I will revisit each county as a featured article. I will tell you about new things to see, places to ride, and give you a little spark of touring curiosity for our state of Iowa. Howard County Iowa Howard County Iowa may not be the biggest county in Iowa, it may not have the most roads to travel in Iowa, it may not have the largest population, but what it does have are people with more Iowa and motorcycle riding pride then you will see in a lot of places! I traveled Howard County by car this month but look forward to doing it again this summer on a bike! I started off by heading north into the county on V58 and scooted right on up to the county seat of Cresco. This is where you will find Spiff Slifka, she works at the county tourism office downtown and she is an incredible wealth of information about her fare county. She can tell you about the Iowa Wrestling Hall of Fame, the Beadle Park Train, Ellen Church (world’s first stewardess, actually brought on as a nurse to help ease the fliers fears) and Dr. Norman Borlaug. All of these are worth checking out however Dr. Borlaug warrants a little something extra! 14 - TRMI FEBRUARY 2014
Dr.. No Dr Norm Norman rman rm an B Borlaug orla or llaaug iiss an n IIowan ow owan wan tthat haat we aall ll sshould houl ho uldd kn ul kknow now ow about. He is the “Father of the Green Revolution”. His agricultural research developed new wheat varieties that transformed the production of wheat more then doubling the harvest saving billions from starvation worldwide. In 1970 he won the Nobel Peace Prize, 1977 the Presidential Medal of Freedom and in 2006 he won the Congressional Gold Medal . He is one of only seven people in the world ever to receive all three of these honors and he is from a little farm just west of V58 outside of Cresco Iowa. Under the guides of full disclosure…to head over to Dr. Borlaug’s historic childhood farm and school you will need to take about three miles of gravel.
After heading north out of Cresco on V58 we came to A23 because I wanted to see the Lidke Mill just north of Lime Springs. Lime Springs is a nice little town. What I really appreciate is the fact that they have signs all over town pointing you to where you want to go and what you want to see! Well I wanted to see the Lidke Mill so I headed north on V36. It is only a few miles but worth jumping off the regular route to see. Besides the beautiful historic mill and dam there is also a great park to stretch your legs. You can camp, fish or canoe. I enjoy county roads so I headed back into Lime Springs and grabbed A23 again and headed west to V26 and that took me north into Chester, an entertaining little border town. Now if you prefer traffic there is always Hwy 63, the Avenue Of The Saints, that will get you there as well. It was lunchtime and Laddy’s Bar and Grill came highly recommended. The town
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