Beta fish, leeches and the mountains of Iowa
Well, as with my first post, I continue to realize how limited access to the Internet can be. I guess I could search it out every night, but if I did that would I get to attempt double front flips at the town pool, swim across the Mississippi River to Wisconsin (or at least a random island), or let Ty and David beat Alex and me in a game of Spades? The answer is no, but I’m sunburned and my back is red enough from those almost-double fronts that I feel satisfied enough to tear myself away from the fruits of the bike trip.
There is too much to catch up on to include all the nitty-gritty details, though we did get really gritty yesterday riding through a couple inches of rain into Harpers Ferry, Iowa. Ty, David, Aidan, Alex and I dashed ahead to make it to town in time to watch Spain beat Germany in the World Cup. When the game was over we found the town park, laid all our stuff out to dry since the sun was starting to poke out, and then laid down for a nap. About 15 minutes later Alex and Aidan ran into the pavilion to wake us up so that we could get all our stuff under the roof before it all got drenched in another wave of rain. Ty, David and I convinced ourselves that the island about 250 yards across the Mississippi was part of Wisconsin so we swam over there, battling a strong current (think infinity pool), dragons and seaweed. We made it and were rewarded with a rainbow and I even got a pet leech on my ankle.
Coming out of Cleveland we had a couple days of pretty nasty headwinds, mixed in with some stormy weather. On the ride from Clyde to Napoleon, Ohio, we got to stop at the Ideal Bakery in Gibsonburg, which lives up to its name. About 6 miles out from Napoleon, the group I was riding with had to take shelter from some bad rain and lightning. We ended up in the house of two wonderful grandparents who gave us fresh brownies, towels to dry off with, and even had a World Cup match on their big screen television; I guess you could say the afternoon turned out in our favor.
Once we hit Indiana the weather was on our side for a while. Monroeville (our first night in the state) has a cross-country biker hostel, basketball courts and the Whippy Dip. For those who have never happened up the town of a few hundred, the Whippy Dip possibly serves the world’s best soft-serve ice cream.
For the next few days we had a crusher tailwind so we did a few 90-mile days at an 18 mile an hour pace to put some land behind us and miles in the bank for when the winds of Montana whip us in the face. We took a day off in Henry, Illinois on July 3 and were blessed with good people, good food, a Fourth of July fair, Bluegrass, and (for those old enough) some beer courtesy of some nice folk. David won a pet beta fish at the fair; his name is Preston, and to our knowledge he is the only beta fish to ever make it across three states on the back rack of a bicycle.
Henry had our first town pool and now we’re starting to hit them left and right. A few days ago we got into Dyersville, Iowa (home of the Field of Dreams) and got to enjoy a pool with a diving board and two wicked slides. Now we’re hanging out in La Crescent, Minnesota, camping right next the pool. With each new pool we’re upping the ante for diving board tricks. Dives and front flips almost seem mundane next to Alex and David’s double fronts and backs, gainers, and spiral dives. Alex actually figured out how to do a front flip and a back flip in succession.
Yesterday, some of Miles’ family met us in Harpers Ferry, Illinois, for a couple hours with plenty of snacks and a large bag for the guys of things forgotten and needed; among the items were a pair of shoes Mike forgot and a few pounds of Twizzlers for Rourke. We also picked up two more bikers; Zach’s aunt and uncle from Wisconsin came down and are going to ride with us for another few days until Minneapolis. While some parts of Iowa may be flat, we have definitely stumbled upon some rather large hills that run along the banks of the Mississippi River. We’re starting to discover that there really isn’t a whole lot of truly flat land in this country, which is really quite unfortunate considering our mode of transportation.
We’ll get to Dean Rice’s house in Minneapolis on Sunday and take two days off. Even though we’ll only have done four of 10 weeks, the city definitely is the mental halfway point. We’ve hit more than half the states of the trip so far and just have a couple big ones to go (I’m looking at you Montana and South Dakota).
Thanks for keeping up with the website. Make sure to check the Cycle20Ten site and my Twitter for daily updates. There will be another post in Minneapolis when there will hopefully be time for a bigger update.
