I had a fun and crazy fourth

Didn't sit and watch any fireworks displays. The closest thing to a picnic lunch was at a Subway in Pipestone Minnesota. I departed Kansas Thursday morning for East central Minnesota. I had a truck to go fetch.
Wednesday night into Thursday morning were storm backed up on storms, anywhere from five to eight inches and flash flooding. That complicated the drive only slightly. By the time I got to central Nebraska the skies had cleared and they'd had no moisture other than the lingering stuff clogging the missery river basin.
My brother had agreed to go with me. he was going to help a friend , and was to have been done by noon. I got to his location at noon, and they had not even started. Mechanical issues. Oh well,he's a mechanic.
What the job was, was aerial spreading fertilizer on several hundred acres of Hutterite farms fields along the South Dakota Minnesota border. My brother's job was filling the hopper and fuel tanks on the planes. A kid from the colony was driving the truck.
Two planes, and they were staggered just enough that we never got an actual break between loads.
Somewhere around the third trip, a sheriff's deputy showed up. They'd had a complaint that one of the planes had flown over some folks and sprayed them with liquid. Not a good thing... Except we were handling pellets just like you'd get in a bag of lawn fertilizer. Yup, scammers looking to rake a buck or three from insurance.
At one point I got to have a conversation with the head pilot, a regular conservative. He opined that the Hutterites were a socialist group and, using them, explained what is wrong with socialism. Part of it that he noted was how the entire colony has only six passenger vehicles. If you want to use a vehicle, you have to request it from the leadership and they approve or disapprove.
If I would have given the kid helping us ten dollars, he would have had to turn the money over to the elders They would have allowed him to keep one dollar, and the rest would have gone to the community fund.
I told him, nope, that might be the model, but they would never get even a small group to that kind of cooperation. Venezuela might be a faint hope.
After getting the truck load of fertilizer empty, we hit the road to find my truck. three hours north and east.
From Pipestone up north past Marshall, the countryside is littered with wind turbines. Thousands of them. Once we got to Granite Falls, it became fields of solar panels.
When I see them, all I think about are the stories of massive quantities of sludge from the silica processing being dumped in fields and rice paddies. I guess when you have a population numbering in the billions, you don't give two shits if you poison a few million.
When we finally got to our destination to retrieve the truck, it was getting close to sun down. The truck had no tail lights. I'd packed a set in, but we couldn't get them to work. They'd gotten water in the sockets and were shorted. Hello, aren't these intended to be part of vehicles that run in the rain? Not happy, we headed back for Sioux Falls with me trailing the lightless truck.
Well, it did have head lamps, and the side markers worked so turn signals were visible. Plenty of rockets red glare and bombs bursting in air. I thought fireworks were still illegal in Minnesota.
Saw a lot of cops on the trip back. they were busy watching all the fireworks displays so we didn't get bothered.
About half way back, my brother stopped and asked if I could take over the big rig. Gladly. It is a rough rider and he is 75 years young. East south bound and down... When we got to Pipestone,my brother noted that the rig, a 1985 Volvo, out accelerated my pickup with ease. Top end is only 66 mph, but it gets there like a pro.
On Friday I got to experience what it would be like with a lowered speed limit for trucks. This was mentioned by Kenny at knuckledraggin and a commenter said to look forward to having a truck doing 66 passing a truck doing 65. I actually encountered quite a few vehicles traveling only a mile or so slower than I was, and I also got passed by several doing a mile or so faster than me. In that case, I helped out and slowed down so they could get by.
At a rest stop in Iowa I encountered a family picnic like nothing I've seen along the highway. A full blown family reunion style cook out, kids running around and all that. approximately 25 cars and minivans with Washington and Oregon plates plus another twenty or so with Iowa and South Dakota tags.
I did not ask where they were from, none of them spoke English and they looked to be Mexicans. Every parking slot in the rest area was taken except in the truck area. When I arrived there were only two trucks and a few cars that were people wanting to make use of the facilities.
All in all, a good trip.