We finally arrived at the Mississippi river yesterday and now have some scenery besides corn!
Both Jake and I are near full strength now and didn't have much of a struggle to complete the 62 miles today. We passed by a lot of houses near the river on stilts, had 3 difficult climbs all of which totaled 2000 ft and also rode past a very large coal fired power plant. This segment was really pleasant, but the final 10 miles coming into La Crosse was on a fairly busy highway.
But we are here (La Crosse a nice city), feel good and have a rest day tomorrow. The plan for our stay is to get a tune-up for Jake, get haircuts and explore the local craft beer scene. Also, Iowa just went down!!
We had a super nice tail wind today, about 15mph for nearly 50 miles. It did make the day much easier, but we also had about 3,000 ft of climbs and the temp reached over 90 degrees which offset a bit of that goodness.
Jake and I are both still feeling the effects of our colds, so the tailwind was definitely a welcome. Also, we had been planning to camp at Monona which would be about 58 miles day. However, the forecast was rain tonight, so we pushed on to a hotel in Marquette - exactly where we meet back up with the Mississippi River.
The weather is constantly changing around here. Our plan is to pedal 60 miles tomorrow which will put us in La Crosse, WI where we will take a rest day. However, it now looks like we may face a headwind. If this is the case, we will definitely cut the day short and break up the trip to La Crosse into 2 days.
Today we moved further into Iowa. There is a lot of corn. In fact corn as far as you can see until the curvature of the earth takes it out of view. A couple of notables for today:
1. We ran across an older guy who was riding by himself from Missoula, MT to Albany, NY. Though he said he was out of time and would have to catch a flight home. Anyhow, he was getting by with a single pannier, a few items bungeed to his back rack, and a handlebar bag. His bike looked like a frame from a road bike and his front tire looked like a road tire (very skinny and thin with frail looking wheel). His rear tire was meaty and looked a lot more like ours. He said he was getting by as a minimalist tourer. But he also said that he'd had to replace his rear wheel due to it cracking and I wonder if that is why he had a more robust looking one now... Regardless, it got me to thinking that I need to do another round of reducing my carrying load. I have several clothes that I just don't use. And after replacing my tires with Schwalbe Marathons, I don't think I need the spare folder? I just think I'm carrying too much.
2. For the older folks reading my blog (which would be all of us :) ), if you remember the movie 'Field of Dreams' with Kevin Cosner - I have a story. Pedaling all day long among the sea of corn, I look to my left and see stadium lighting climbing skyward. And I'm talking lighting that looked like it would light a D1 college football stadium. I was just dumbfounded and wondered why it was there - no populations nearby, no schools, nothing... but then I rode another few hundred yards and there was a sign that explained it. This was the field used in the movie 'field of dreams'.
3. I realized today that Elon Musk has stolen the SpaceX rocket design from the poor Iowa farmers. Please see for yourself directly below.
Cheers! Cam
Iowa Farmers
Space X New Shepard (stolen design from Iowa farmers)
Jake has still been feeling the effects of his cold, while I've got most of my strength back.
With Jake not feeling well, we moved as many of his heavy things as we could onto my bike. Mid-ride, we stopped at some sort of game reserve, roll out our air mattresses out and take an afternoon nap in attempt to give Jake a bit of a break.
For the first time in a long while, we've finally encountered rolling hills (no more solid flatness). You'd think flat terrain is ideal, and I'm not complaining about it... but.... on the flats, you never get a break! You always have to keep pedaling. Whereas with hills, you pedal up the hill and then on the other side you get the opportunity to coast and take a short break. Jake and I both agree that we'd rather have 'some' hills than no hills.
We pushed out from Davenport with the intent on Oxford Junction as our destination. However, we shortened the day by about 7-8 miles and opted to camp in Massillon. Massillon is basically a few houses and a gas station. The camp site is state operated and was behind the local cemetery which was kind of creepy!
Jake and I both caught colds after probably pushing mileage a bit too far last week. We had already planned one day off at Davenport, but decided to add a second day to rest and rid ourselves of the colds. I did visit the local TREK store today, where I bought a new pair of cycling shorts, some chamois Butt'r and had my transmission cleaned up.
We will head northwest toward Bennett, IA where we will return to the Northern Tier Route (we deviated just a bit to stay at Davenport). Plan for a 55 mile ride tomorrow to Oxford Junction as our destination where we plan to camp. We will face a small headwind. Both of us are excited to get going again!
I don't think I mentioned this in the last post, but we are about exactly mid-point in our journey. We've pedaled ~1700 miles and have ~1700 remaining. The full Northern Tier is 4200 miles, but we will give up ~800 miles to Amtrak in order to meet Julie, Emily and Aunt Mei at Glacier by July 6.
I woke up with a dry, scratchy throat this morning. Not a big deal, I don't feel weak or anything. At this point, I'm not sure if I caught a bit of a cold or is it allergies?? Good thing that we've made our final push to Davenport and have arrived for our much needed day off! Hoooray! Davenport is where we first encounter the Mississippi river. On Monday we will begin the journey north towards Wisconsin and eventually, we will meet back up with the Mississippi and follow along side for quite some time.
Anyhow, in Davenport, we found and excellent Vietnamese restaurant and ate a delicious vermicelli bowl along with a veggie fried rice and some refreshing Vietnamese drinks.
For the record, we completed Section #8 of the Northern Tier Route as well as crossed another state!
