Friday, July 18, 2014
Chancellor to Rock Valley Photos
The first of the flood damage I came across.
This thing is so detailed and cool! Pictures can't do it justice.
A sign coming out of Canton. Damn.
Iowa!
Rock Valley off in the distance.
This part of Iowa is hilly
One of the signs in the windows shows much of the route.
Almost every house and business has some kind of RAGBRAI / biked theme decoration.
Chancellor to Rock Valley: RAGBRAI!
I've been pretty good this trip about updating every day, but yesterday got too fun too fast and I was in no state to write a blog update when I finally returned to my tent in the late hours of the night. RAGBRAI magic is afoot!
The ride yesterday was pretty relaxed, an easy 25 miles to my first rest stop at Canton, a town on the Iowa border, and then a more difficult headwindy hilly 20 miles into Rock Valley. 46 miles, 3:15 on the bike, and I arrived at 1:20pm. It was basically only half-day as far as normal riding is concerned, but I was feeling the wear and tear of 29 days straight of riding and almost 2,000 miles without a break.
Rock Valley and the surrounding area were hit badly by a flood about a month ago, and they almost had to cancel their town hosting RAGBRAI. They've had hundreds of volunteers working countless hours to get the town ready, sometimes while their own homes are still in disrepair. There were signs of the flood damage starting miles away. This is an area that has never flooded like that before, so no-one was carrying flood insurance.
And yet the town is in full RAGBRAI spirits. It's fully decorated already and RAGBRAI folks are running around everywhere. I was going to stay in a hotel to get some "me" time on my rest days, but that seemed contrary to the purpose of the tour so I asked the town RAGBRAI committee if anyone was offering up yards. Now I'm staying at Phil and Diane's place waiting for Team RoadShow to join us on Saturday. I just did laundry not in a sink for the first time this trip! Yay! I also have my tent in a all--day shady spot which means I can sleep in! And I can also leave it up for three nights straight! Joy!
Last night after Phil and Diane cooked me a great dinner of burgers, I headed back in to town to meet people. I'd already become somewhat of a celebrity this year because I was one of the first to show up and because I rode all the way from Oregon. In fact I was already interviewed for the local paper that afternoon. When I went back into town is was a little slow, so I headed the one bar.
There was only one other person there at first, someone who'd lost a lot of property to the flood and we talked about that for awhile. Soon other people started coming in, and it turned out word had spread really fast in the small town "Hey, are you the guy who rode from Oregon!" I didn't buy any of my own drinks after my first one, and the night flowed to fun from there.
Highlights include meeting Don, the Rock Valley Hospitiality Director, who has as Gold Bond University setup in his backyard for RAGBRAI, and a great night riding around with Bernie: "Lance Armstrong can suck the fart out of my ass, this guy rode from Oregon!"
Yes you can Lance, yes you can...
Thing are going to get more crazy from here, so I won't be doing regular updates from RAGBRAI. I'll try and do picture updates, but we'll see. There is too much crazy stuff happening on RAGBRAI to document, even if I had the time. I also have other responsiblities now, like helping get the team here and working on our juggling show.
Rock Valley, you are the awesomest.
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Corsica to Chancellor photos
The James River. According to the people in Written, it only falls 25 during it's 250 mile trek across North Dakota. That's one foot every ten miles. That is why it floods ask the time.
Tree face!
Dan in his Adventure Time RV
Parker, SD. "Life's a little bigger in a small town"
I stopped and sang James River Blues while crossing the James River, but I'm not sure it's the same one.
Mulberries!
The Midwest: where roads in town dead end in cornfields. Notice the lack of fences. Only the west fences all their fields with no trespassing signs.
Yard ducks!
Brenda, Shaunna, and Dan
The bathroom
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Corsica to Chancellor: Never Say No to Adventure!
So it happened again. I tried to go 66 miles today and ended up going 79. I'm only 46 miles from the start of RAGBRAI. I'll reach Rock Rapids, IA on day 29, the first day of my 5th week, exactly a week after entering South Dakota. I'll be just a few miles short of 2,000. I also managed to shower more in South Dakota then I have the entire trip so far. Furthermore, I never set my tent up in South Dakota - the last time I used it was "No-one drinks the water in Roundup," Montana.
I'm definitely in the midwest now! To add to my lists of firsts, yesterday I saw my first Mullberry tree, and tonight I saw my first lightening bugs! I also heard my first mention of Hy-Vee. Soon I'll see a Kum 'n Go! (I hope)
The ride today was pretty chill. Mostly flat and with varying winds. My speed fluctuated between 12 and 20 mph mostly, depending on the wind. It was kind of like going up and down hills, and sort of frusterating at times. My mental game with these things is to consider any easy miles (downhills, less wind) as "Free Miles" getting me closer to my end total mileage goal for the day. I don't fret the downhills thinking that I'm just going to have to go up, I instead always expect uphills and headwinds and am thankful for any "free miles" getting me closer to the end of the day.
Like I said, biking is all mental. Also, all driving miles are "free miles," which makes driving way too not-mental. Bleh.
Anyway, the interesting part of the day happened later. I got to Parker, my intended stop for the day at 3pm with 5:05 on the bike at miles 69 (supposed to be 66). I stopped in at the city hall to see if I could stay in the park (town pop 1,000) but the lady there hmmmed and hawwwed and said words like "liability." For the record, if you ever say something about "liability" when telling someone they can't do something that is perfectly safe and consumes no resources, you are a tool. She was one of those types that just loves rules for the sake of rules. Anyway, they said I should try riding a few more miles and asking around at the fairgrounds. I did some more asking around, talked to the sheriff (who said the park was fine, but the fairgrounds better) and then planned to go to the faigrounds. They were pretty nice - basically a tiny town with lots of minature buildings setting up for the largest county fair in the state in 2 weeks. I found a shelter to sleep under even. Bingo.
Except not. I went to the store to get dinner and there I met Dan and his daughter Shaunna. We got to talking and Dan invited me to his place in Chancellor (pop 300), another 7 miles down the road (Dan said 5, map said 8, turned out to be 7). Thus I arrived at my final destination at 7pm, 5:52 on bike, 79 miles (I did some in town riding in Parker) and at 5pm. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to ride farther at first - but I was able - and as I say frequently "Never Say No to Adventure!"
Dan, Shaunna, and his wife Brenda are awesome! They cooked me a great dinner and we had a hoot of a time talking about all sorts of things - birding, distilling, different jobs, schools, my trip, their lives, etc etc. Dan has a pretty sweet homemade still and I enjoyed some great ... well. They also have weird ducks and other fun animals, and a house that is over 100 years old.
As usual I needed to go to bed way too soon, but I'm inside, well fed, had a shower, and really had fun. Hanging out with Dan, Brenda, and Shaunna was a great experience.
An interersting thing about this type of traveling is you are constantly throwing yourself to the mercy of strangers and giving them a chance to determine who they want to be. The City Hall lady at Parker had a chance to look the other way, or even invite me into her yard, but she didn't. That's fine, a missed opportunity for her to leavve comfort zone and do something she'd be proud of. I don't think she is a bad person or anything, it's rare that I get invited into a personal area, but those that do are pretty amazing people and less rare than you think.
Amazing people like Dan who jumped at the chance to help, I didn't even ask. So are Father A in Winner, Chuck who welded my bike, and so many other people along the way. People often wonder "What would I do in X situation." I'm giving them a chance to test who they are when it comes to kindness to strangers - and of course benefitting hugely myself.
Life is good because people are good.
ILYI
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Winner to Corsica photos
This was the first typical Midwestern farm I remember seeing. Lots of trees planted for a windbreak. For various climate reasons, you don't see much of this in the west. Something to do with living on the planet Dune. (That one was for you Mark)
One day I will figure out how to put these pictures in order without ruining everything. My home in Corsica.
Between New Holland and Corsica. Heyperial Walkers? Imperial Haymakers? HayT-HayTs? Help me out here...
Farthest west Casey's atleast at this latitude, is in Platte, SD
Sure looks like I'm in the midwest now.
First glimpse of the Missouri (in South Dakota)
Now that's what I call a real corn field. Still smaller than Iowa corn is right now, by a lot, but it's respectible midwestern corn.
"Duling Angus" I hope Duling is a last name and not a terrible mispelling. Also, if you are going to mispell one of those words, it should be the second one.
"Gregory, a happening place... Home of the Gorillas." Right...
Home for the night in Corsica, the pool in the background.
I would have been a lot more excited about this downhill if the PMA road I was one didn't about launch me into space.
If this isn't the midwest I don't know what is.
Missouri River
Winner to Corsica: A day of firsts!
It's hard to know where to begin with this post, there is so much to say. I rode 80 miles today, but I didn't mean to. It was sort of an accident... but I should start at the beginning.
Father A and I had a great time last night after I posted talking about many things: my tour, him growing up in Poland, living under socialism, how a pig used to live in the rectory - all sorts of fun stuff. I could have stayed up all night talking to him, but I needed to sleep. Once again I met someone great and my time with them was too short - such is the curse of touring. To borrow the term from Fight Club, I don't want all these friends to just be single serving, but that's what e-mail is for I guess.
I got out around 7:30 Central time, which is good for me with the time zone change. I did the first 40 miles with only a tiny stop to scarf a Cliff Bar, there not being any real towns to stop at before the Missouri River and me knowing there was a good place to break and nap there.
Those 40 miles were on another seamed FPMINTA road, although most not being a bad as the road in to White River. I'm going to shorten that abbreviation just to PMA, by the way, pronounced "puma." You're welome?
I knew that I would be encourtering lots of PMA roads in the midwest. You don't get them out west because they need cold AND moisture to form. The west is cold but even if they get lots of snow its too dry. The PMA roads showed up right around the same time I stopped seeing irrigation equipment in the fields. Usually you get them for maybe 5-10 miles at a time, not 40 miles though. RAGBRAI tries to avoid them a well. They are by far the worst roads to ride on - even worse then the fresh chipseal we get out west (basically a sticky gravel road until the cars pound it down) That atleast gets better with age and you can often ride in the tire ruts of cars. (The roads I had in Oregon this ride were great well flattened chipseal, in 2003 they were terrible about 1 year old chipseal but still better than PMA roads). You can zone out and get a rythm on chipseal, with PMA roads you get a hard loud impact every 2-9 seconds (averaging every 3 seconds) that just rattles you. For hours. I'm running my tires low all the time now (75 psi instead of 90), and figure I'll need to until I'm out of the midwest, sacrificing efficiency for comfort and not breaking my bike. Such is life. At least I have my mind right about it now.
Anyway, today was a day of firsts! After I crossed the Missouri River - the same river that started in Townsend where I spent the 4th of July - I was unofficially in the midwest. It was like night and day, holy cow! I saw my first not-embarrasing corn field. My first Casey's. My first Pizza Ranch. My first Iowa license plate. The seamed road also went away and it got flatter. In the matter of 5 miles it went from stereotypical western South Dakota looks to a place that looks just like Iowa. They say a lot of it is the soil - the glaciers stopped at the Missouri so it's flatter and the soil is much better
I was going to go only 14 more miles from the Missouri River to Platte for a 55 mile day, but when I got there it was only 2:22 and I only had 4:18 on the bike. I figured I'd ride another 14 miles to New Holland and cut some mileage off my day tomorrow - 86 mile with no services or 96 if I detoured for water stops (New Holland the following towns were on the detour). I didn't get out of Platte until an hour later and then got hit by hard wind, but I made it another 14 miles for a 70 mile day - except there was nothing in New Holland. Damn
So I kept going 10 more miles to Corsica, making for an 80 mile day and 6:23 on the bike Oops. In Corsica I stopped at the store for supplies and was offered a place to stay and a cooked meal back in New Holland, and the same in Harrison, the town between here and New Holland. C'mon...
Whatever, they also gave me the skinny on a nice park by the pool that I can camp in, so I went there. I wasn't there for more than 20 minutes when a bunch of kids came up for a 6:30 to 8:30 pool session. They hung out with me for awhile (they were 1st through 7th grade, mostly 5th and 6th) and asked me all sorts of questions about bike touring. I juggled for them and played some songs on the uke, and then after I cooked dinner I joined them in the pool. I think the highlight was that I taught them all the Team Zombie: Zombie Line where you all walk like Zombies off the diving board in a line while moaning for brains.
Winning.
Anyway, this got long. The last first is that I picked up a lightweight bluetooth keyboard to make phone updating suck less. It does disable my spellcheck though... I hope this doesn't mean these get too long-winded and TLDR. Whatevs, there is a lot more want to say :)
White River to Winner photos
Wood looking Midwestern
Yo bro, your roof is too big.
Want.
My home for the night in Winner.
Where I slept in White River, you can see my bedroll.
On the right is the store I wrote about in Written.
The "west" on the left side of the road...
... and attempted Midwest on the right, lousy corn.
My host in Winner, Farther A.
