July 22, 2015, Wednesday, Peoria, IL
Day 83

Departed Amana for the 75 mile drive to East Moline and a visit to the John Deere Harvester factory. Guided tour lasted almost 2 hours and was very interesting. The company started making combines (which combine customary hand farming tasks with machine tasks) in 1912. Then a combine could harvest about 3 acres per day. Today, a harvester can do 30 acres in an hour. No harvester is built unless it has already been sold. The largest model goes for $543,000 and lasts on average 17 years. The painting process includes a 10 stage immersion pre-treatment followed by a 3 stage electrocoating process. You can have any color you want as long as it is John Deere green. Next was what should have been a 10 minute drive to the Mississippi River Visitor Center except for a bridge with 11' clearance and inadequate warning. I did stop in time but we had to detach the car and I did a 3 point turn on the 2 lane road fairly easily and the other cars just had to wait. We learned about the 29 locks and 750 foot elevation drop from the beginning of the Mississippi River in St. Paul, MN, to St. Louis, MO, while viewing Locks & Dam 15. Unfortunately, no boats utilizing the locks while we were present. Continued on the road about 100 miles to East Peoria and an overnight at Walmart.

July 21, 2015, Tuesday, Amana, IA
Day 82

A very relaxing day visiting in the Amana Colonies with gorgeous weather, a slight coolness to the air. Settled in the 1850's by a German religious group known as the Community of True Inspiration, many of the buildings remain, many of which have been restored. The colonies consisted of 7 villages within close proximity to each other and lived a communal life until 1932 when the depression and other factors ended it.  Today, the colonies host several wineries, a brewery, restaurants, bakeries, art galleries, etc., in addition to the museums telling the history and showing a communal kitchen (as it existed in 1932), cooper shop, general store and others. We grazed all day. Had lunch at the Ronneburg Restaurant, a German restaurant dating to 1950.  This place is to be avoided as we had our first totally awful meal on the trip. Did buy some goodies at the General Store and a sauerkraut bread at the bakery.