Day Two: Upper Mid-West

Sunday was a free day, cachestalker94 had to be enrolled in school the following day.  Choices were, a trip to Iowa about 2 hours away or a much longer trip to western part of Minnesota with a swing through South and North Dakota.  Since our arrival, cachestaker94 was not feeling well.  We arrived in the area just as the spring pollen was in full swing and her sinuses were paying the price.  Also, we are both fans of Rock n Roll; so we headed to Clear Lake, Iowa to see the crash site of Buddy Holly.

We got up early and headed south picking up an easy virtual along the way.  We stayed on the Interstate, observing the view of flat grasslands and many power producing windmills.  We crossed the border at a rest area and took down the information for Top of Iowa Earthcache.  This was my first time in Iowa.  We looked at the grasslands and noticed the constant wind, which would explain the use of windmills in this area.  

Continued south to Clear Lake, Iowa and hit the first of two virtuals, The Day the Music Died.  There are many muggle tourists at this location and one was helpful in taking photos of us.  This was the location where Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Booper last performed.  We looked around the town and headed in the north direction to Holly Shrine.  On the way, the driver of a car in front of us appeared to be very confused.  We pulled up and they were looking for the crashsite as well.  I told them to follow me since I had my Nuvi routing to the parking location.  The crash location is about 3/10s of a mile from the parking location and that would throw off any autorouting GPS.  Arrived at the parking location and we couldn't find the mico hidden there, I would later read coordinates are off by 60 feet......another phone cacher???  It was a very windy day and we hiked to the crash site, had photos taken by muggle tourist once again.  It's a very somber location and not much has changed to the area since the plane crash.  

We return much the same way we arrived along the Interstate, finding rest area caches.  I noticed that Minnesota rest areas have some hiking trails, which I throught was really cool.  We came back to the city area and chose to eat an Indian Casino buffet.