Tuesday, June 11, 1996
Day 31
Blackhawke State Park, Iowa to Story City, Iowa
Today's Miles: 90
Cumulative Miles for the Tour: 2061
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Terrain: Flat, Newly Planted Corn Farmland
Find of the Day: Riverside Bible Camp
Iowa keeps treating us better and better. We started riding this morning along flat, country roads that didn't even have so much as a roll to them. The traffic was so light you could keep count of the vehicles passing and never get above ten in an hour.
Lee got out ahead of everyone, pulling into Lake City just as the Budweiser truck was filling up the local store. The "Bud" man was impressed with what we were doing, so he gave Dave an 18-pack and said to please remember him as we sat around camp, tonight. Not to be outdone, the Frito-Lay guy tossed us a huge bag of chips as he was leaving.Lake City's moto is "Lake City...everything but the lake." They sure do have some of the friendliest people we have met. A half a block down on the right, passed the grocery store, there was a junior high school, girl's softball team waiting for a bus to take them up the road ten miles to a softball tournament. They were standing under a couple of huge shade trees, screaming and hollering greetings as we rode by, wishing us a safe trip and in general making us feel real good. As luck would have it, we caught up with them in the next town and were able to catch an inning of their game after we had lunch at "The Red Top".The ride was relatively easy today, remaining flat except for one major, 40mph downhill into a river valley that turned into a slow, 8mph grind out of the same valley. Other than that, the corn fields just kept coming. It's amazing how fast this stuff grows. We'll go to bed one evening and the corn will be 3 inches high. The next morning it will be 4 to 5 inches. We're right at the beginning of the growing season and this stuff is really starting to take off.
An angel overlooking the cemetery
One of the interesting things to check out when passing through these small towns is their cemeteries. You can tell the age of an area and a little bit of the history by reading the headstones and doing a little deduction. Most of the towns we are riding through were settled in the mid 1800's. The oldest set of headstones in each cemetery is usually from the late 1800's. Some still have "Civil War Veteran" placks attached to the graves. Whole generations of families can be traced by reading down the list of sites. I've even found some where the people were born in the late 1700's. I guess this has been farmland since WAY back.
A 150 Year Old Headstone
Donna scouted out an interesting place for us to stay the night. As she was looking around Story City for a campsite, the lady at the Chamber of Commerce told her to call the local church camp to see if they could help out...SCORE!Riverside Lutheran Bible Camp is a large complex just north of town along Highway D61. They hold a bible retreat camp for kids during the summer, so they asked if we would stop and talk to them. We were offered two cabins for the night, hot showers, dinner, and breakfast the next morning. What else can I say? This is Iowa, and I guess I shouldn't be surprised anymore, but the people just keep getting better and better.We're now headed for Illinois, getting ready to cross the Mississippi River this weekend, pedaling into the final part of the tour. There's 17 days to go until DC and we're starting to feel it. The miles are getting a little easier after having averaged over 90 miles a day for the last two weeks. It's the Appalachians that are on everyone's mind, now...
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