Day 103 - Canistota to Canton - Two Far 2021 - Sooo... Far

July 20, 2021

Day 103 - Canistota to Canton

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We finally had another ride that was not strenuous and really fun. Part of the pleasure was that we are back in a more populated area and we had convenience stores and restaurants no more than thirteen miles apart. Most of our stops today were about seven miles apart. It makes for such enjoyable riding for us to have plenty of breaks - and of course all those opportunities to sit and talk to people!

You can see by the elevation profile that we had more descent than ascent today. It was great. We averaged 12.6 mph today and felt as if we were flying.

We had animals other than cows and horses to see today. This was a nice pastoral view of sheep under the trees.

But, they could be mules. We don't know how to tell the difference and a quick Google search didn't help.

Our first stop was in the town of Marion. Coming into town, we rode past this huge ethanol plant.

We talked with the group of men (and there always is one!) gathered at the local store. They were all farmers and said that much of the local corn crop is grown for ethanol. As usual, Kerry asked a lot of questions and we enjoyed talking with them. I'm sorry that I didn't think to get a picture.

The next town was Parker. It is only seven miles from Marion, but we were happy to take another break.

The Turner County Courthouse is an imposing sight up at the end of Parker's main street.

Underway again, we had six miles to the next town, Chancellor. Just outside Chancellor was another ethanol plant. This one had a very long string of tanker cars waiting to be loaded.

They stretched way down the highway past the plant.

Lennox was the largest town we went through today, with a population of just over 2,000. (The others were a few hundred each.) When we pulled into the convenience store parking lot, a man dressed in a business suit was leaving the store and stopped to ask about the bike and our trip. Before leaving us, he mentioned that he worked at the bank across the street and we were welcome to come over and sit in their lobby if we wanted to take a break.

John (who is the President of Security State Bank), Cole and Aaron.

Kerry here...

After we got our usual Diet Coke, I thought about John's offer to visit the bank and decided to take him up on it. While Jeanna stayed in the C-Store, I went over to the bank to find out all I could about small town farming and banking. John told me (unsuprisingly) that the majority of their business was with the local farmers as well as the business that support the farmers.

He said that farmers would come to the bank over the winter to get all of the paperwork done for the upcoming planting season. As the farms in their area generally started planing in the middle of April or early May, they tried to have everything approved by the 1st of April. That was the money would be ready when the farmer needed it. These operating loans, as he called them, were a form of revolving credit that the farmer could tap into as needed and had a term of 1 year. After the crops were harvested, the farmer would then begin to pay the loan off. The reason for the 1 year term was so that the farmer didn't have to sell all of his crop at harvest time, but rather, could spread the sales out thruough the fall and winter, when prices were generally stronger. About 40% of the corn crop in the area is used to produce ethanol, and that most of the remaining corn is shipped to the west coast for export.

John also said that their bank handled equipment loans and that they were very competitive with the financing arms of Deere and CaseIH. He said that most of the equipment loans in their area ran in the 300K - 500K range and had a term of 5 to 7 years. One thing that I did not know about equipment loans is that they have annual, instead of monthly payments.

One final thing I learned is that most of the farmers in the area work about 1000 to 2000 acres and only own about 30%-50% of the land that they farm. The rest of the land is rented on an annual cash basis.

Thank you John for taking your time to share all the information with me!

In Lennox we rode by a Wilson Trailer manufacturing facility. They make all of the grain-haulers we see every day.

In Worthing, we decided to stop for lunch. We chose Kim's Korner, where we had a great time and an excellent regional favorite for lunch.

Kurt and Kim, owners of Kim's Korner Bar & Grill. From what we saw at lunch, no one is a stranger here. It seemed to be a very congenial place.

For lunch, Kim suggested Chislic. It is seasoned fried pieces of mutton, served with garlic salt and it is delicious! Chislic is a local favorite in this part of South Dakota. I'm so glad we ordered it!

We talked to the other diners, and mostly to this guy sitting at the next table. When he left, we found out he had bought our lunch. We ran out to thank him.

Casey - thank you very much for lunch. It was very kind of you.

We rode through more farms and fields on the way to our destination of Canton.

This huge pile of corn was open to the elements in places. We decided it must be bound for ethanol, rather that animal feed.

We are spending the night in Canton, SD, just three miles from the Iowa line. We'll enter a new state tomorrow, but one we've cycled in several times in the past.

Today's ride: 55 miles (89 km)
Total: 3,836 miles (6,173 km)

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Alain AbbateTurn around and go back north. Canada is opening up.
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