Bike Across the US - July

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Today we had the day off. We spent the evening with Tom and Ellen Lee, our hosts. Ellen, in addition to her hospital job, owns a Healthy Choice Dinners Solutions, so we went down and raided her store for some dinner, then took it to their house and cooked it up. I will tell you, we have been fed better in the Dakotas than anywhere else on our trip.

Photo Left: Supper with Ellen and TomPhoto Center: Pam on the boatPhoto Right: SD State Capitol Then for a low cal dessert (no cal) they treated us to a boat ride up the Missouri River. What a wonderful evening!

July 2 – July 6 2009

We flew home on the 2nd to tend to our fallen tree branch on our roof, the dishwasher that went out in one of our rentals, the broken water pipe, the plugged water line, and all the other items that landlords get to take care of. We flew back to Pierre on the 6th to hopefully rest up for our next assault on the US by bike.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Pedaling Day # 31

Miles today – 61.2

Daily ride time – 5 hrs 32 min

Average – 11.1 mph

Daily Climb – 1,485 feet

Total BRAA mileage – 2,102

Weather leaving Pierre SD @ 0430 hrs–  cloudy sky, temp 67 degrees wind from the East @ 10 mph

Weather arriving Fort Thompson @ 1155 hrs – sunny, temp 83 wind from the SE at 15 – 20 mph

With the forecast high temperature at 95’F for today we felt it would be better to leave as early as possible. We woke at 3am and went for a couple of nice Omelets before leaving Pierre at 4:30. There were lighting shows off to the East, North, and West of us so we covered our clothes bag with a Hefty bag to keep our clothes dry and off we went into the darkness. We did not see our first traffic until 5:30 and sunrise was at 6:05.

Our route today would be of desolation with no towns or stops for the first 48 miles. The strange thing about today’s ride was the lack of animals. We did not see any deer until we spotted three around 9:30. We could spot only two pheasant. It was quite the change form the ride between Bismarck and Pierre. As the sun peeked up the wind increased and we found ourselves pedaling 7 – 8 mph at times on almost level terrain. Hills were 4 – 5 mph and we were very grateful we had minimal hills to climb today.

The biggest challenge for myself today was recovering form my cold. On the evening of the 2nd I could feel my throat feeling scratchy and the following morning I did not make it out of bed. My fever broke around noon time and the recovery has been slow but steady. Today when I awoke I sat up form bed and my nose started to run like a faucet. Pam had some allergy medicine that I took and that seemed to slow the flow down enough to eat breakfast and get us going on the road. Surprisingly while riding my nose (and cold) behaved and when we stopped at our destination for lunch it seemed to start to flow again. I guess my body is telling me it wants me to ride….

After our lunch we went across the street to our motel (the Lodestar Casino and Motel) and were able to get an early check in. A nap was also in order after getting up at 3am.

It really felt good to be back on the bike. I feel real privileged to be able to take the time away from work to ride but when we went home for the 3 ½ days, plus taking an extra day off to site see, it takes its toll on the old body. We are finding it takes about two days for the metabolism to slow back down – to where we are not wanting to eat 4,000+ calories a day again. But being back on the bike now feels more natural than taking time off – and that’s good because we are not quite half way done with our ride……

The casino has really cheap food, I had the chicken fettuccini for $7 and Pam had the Walleye for $10.95. Then it occurred to me, it was July 7th (7-7) and it was nearing 7 pm and my dinner was $7 – all these sevens…. We were staying at the only hotel within 40 miles it just happened to be a casino – was fate lining up for us to get lucky tonight??? Could this be the night??? So just after 7 Pam and I tried our luck – we both rolled over and had a great night of sleep – jackpot!

Until tomorrow!

BrianWednesday, July 8, 2009 Pedaling Day # 32 Miles today – 45.2 Daily ride time – 4 hrs 11 min Average – 10.8 mph Daily Climb – 1,834 feet Total BRAA mileage – 2,147 Weather leaving Fort Thompson SD @ 0724 hrs–  purple overcast, temp 64 degrees wind from the East @ 10 mph Weather arriving Wessington Springs SD @ 1215 hrs – mostly cloudy, temp 74 wind from the East at 15 – 20 mph Today’s headwind and unexpected hills both contributed to our WAY below average mph.  However, the temperature and cloud cover mostly made up for the discomfort of riding a bicycle with a strong headwind.  This allowed us to see a heard of buffalo, finally, up close complete with little ones.  The one dominant buffalo bull was HUGE!  He stood out from the rest in more ways than one.  The little ones are adorable, each one with a fuzzy tan coat.  I just finished a book by Dan O’Brien entitled “Buffalo For The Broken Heart”.  Our new friend Ellen from Pierre, SD, loaned me the book last Wednesday, and I finished reading it Sunday (had lots of idle time on the plane).  I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.  It’s about the author’s life in South Dakota, and his buffalo ranching experience.  I learned a lot about this part of our country, and our native buffalo.  Kind of makes you sad though thinking of all the buffalo that we slaughtered (6,000,000+) just for their tongues and hides…

The buffalo was our only real wild animal encounter today.  However, yesterday was an interesting morning when we passed a skunk, and I watched him turn around and point his business end at us in the blink of an eye!  We pedaled past him in the early morning light, and I didn’t notice him until we were right beside him about three feet away.  I think he scared me more than we scared him because he never did shoot us with his perfume.  Thankfully! We were happy to coast into our overnight town of Wessington Springs, SD (pop. 1,011) and call it a day.  Must get back into the daily biking exercise of 5-8 hour days! Blue skies! Pam

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Pedaling Day # 33 Miles today – 75.0 Daily ride time – 6 hrs 13 min Average – 12.1 mph Daily Climb – 1,140 feet Total BRAA mileage – 2,222 Weather leaving Wessington Springs SD @ 0557 hrs–  purple overcast, temp 65 degrees wind from the SW @ 10 mph Weather arriving Madison SD @ 3:05  – mostly cloudy, temp 75 wind from the SW at 10 mph This morning we woke to lightning and rain, and in fact they said we received 2 ½ inches in less than one hour. I checked the weather radar and the front was moving through quickly and there was no more cells to the west of us. So we waited a few minutes then took off chasing the storm and the lightning, kinda fun! They were also forecasting a tail wind behind the front and for the first 7 miles they were right… but then we caught back up to the storm (only the wind) and the wind was blowing 20 – 30 mph from the SE and we were heading straight East. Seven more miles we stopped for breakfast (those 7 miles took us almost a full hour), drug our feet eating, then an hour later took off again.

We rode for 10 miles then caught the storm again (only the wind, no rain) with the wind but now the wind was coming out of the south so we only had a cross wind and not a straight head wind so that was better                                               A flooded corn field outside of Wessington Springs Just before noon we were entering the town of Artesian and they had the road closed off. We pedaled up the line and asked what was going on and they said they were moving a house and we needed to wait for 15 minutes. We had never seen a house come down the highway so we put this in our entertainment category. Just after Artesian it started to lightly sprinkle but with the 85 degree temp on my bike computer and the 90+% humidity it felt good. It was not enough rain to put on our rain gear or cover our valuables on the bike. After we ate lunch in Howard we came out to find the wind had started to shift again only now it was SSW which would actually help us a bit instead of hurt us – yeah! We rolled into Madison SD at 3:05 and found a Super 8. We are only 25 miles form Dave Holmvick’s (a skydiving friend) house so we gave him a call and he is going to come down and go out to dinner with us. (let’s observe Dave in his natural habitat…) That’s about all for today…..

Brian

PamSaturday, July 11, 2009 Pedaling Day # 35 Miles today – 93.8 Daily ride time – 6 hrs 41 min Average – 14.0 mph Daily Climb – 1,558 feet Total BRAA mileage – 2,369 Weather leaving Sioux Falls SD @ 0505 hrs–  clear skies, temp 64 degrees wind calm Weather arriving Sioux City IA @ 2:15  – cloudy skies, temp 82 wind from the E at 5 mphToday was the best day ever biking in Iowa! You could not ask for better July biking in Iowa than we had today! With dark high clouds from after breakfast and a virtual no wind day it was pure delight! We started out early (5:05) since we had a 90+ mile day to cover and took the fastest road out of Sioux Falls we could find. The roads in Sioux Falls that we rode on were all old concrete with giant cracks on most of the seams and many pot holes to boot. The lanes are skinny and the cars are not familiar with bikes. We only ran into two bikes the whole ride through town and they were just kids going to the 7-11 for candy. So we headed out of town first, then found then zig zagged on county roads until we found the highway we were supposed to be on.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Pedaling Day # 36 Miles today – 47.1 Daily ride time – 4 hrs 5 min Average – 11.4 mph Daily Climb – 540 feet Total BRAA mileage – 2,416 Weather leaving Sioux City IA @ 0542 hrs– dark cloudy skies, temp 67 degrees wind SE at 10 mph Weather arriving Onawa, IA @ 2:15  – partly cloudy skies, temp 79 wind from the S at 10 mph A most unique bike riding day across America would definitely describe our ride today.  It began early, 5:42 rolling out of Mark’s drive way in Sioux City toward Onawa, IA (population 3,091).  Once on the paved road we headed toward the bike trail in Riverside Park.  The bike trail alluded us, and we decided upon the shortest way out of the city.  Within 10 minutes of the ride it began to rain, so we borrowed someone’s empty garage right off the road, dug into the hill below their home.  This garage worked great while we donned our rain gear and wrapped our bags in garbage bags.  Within 15 minutes we set off once again toward our destination.  We made it about eight miles into our ride when it really started to rain.  Amazingly there was a 24 hour diner on the corner, so we went inside for our morning feeding.  Once inside and seated, our waitress Rhonda said, “Oh, you are the people on the front page of today’s paper!.”  Our host for this evening, Tracey, who is also a cyclist, set up an interview with Tim of the Sioux City Journal, and Brian gave him our story last Wednesday.  We autographed a couple of papers and answered questions about our journey for the patrons and wait staff.  The cook informed us that the hotel across the street from the diner had free wireless, so off we went to look at the weather radar.                Read the SCJ article here

We stopped for a breakfast buffet in Missouri Valley about 30 miles into our ride.  Nice to be able to relax a while half way through the day’s ride.  With no wind to speak of and flat terrain it was another fine morning for cycling.  Good thing as both of us are tired!  We had four hills to climb as we headed through the Loess Hills Trail.  Beautiful scenery through this area!  We saw an earth house that peaked our interest, and several homes, workshops, and garages partially built into the hills.  This must be the gold finch haven, as we saw so many of these tiny yellow and black birds (the Iowa State bird).  So cute! Traffic was a bit dicey as we rode into Council Bluffs being so close to noon time and all… We took a shorter route to the Enterprise Car Rental office, and had our bike disassembled and were on the road to Hampton, IA by noon.  We’re going to visit Bob and Cheri, Brian’s parents, so we’ll be “off” the route officially until Sunday when the RAGBRAI begins.  We’ll be doing some much needed bike maintenance and test riding for the next few days to make sure it’s ready to take us the rest of the way across the US!  I can’t wait to taste the fresh raspberries waiting on the bushes in Cheri’s garden!  I’m sure there are some other garden goodies waiting for us as well.

Ah the beauty of summertime in Iowa!

Pam

July 14 – 18th

The third week in July is the Franklin County fair in Hampton so our days off we got to attend the fair. Pam got to attend her very first figure 8 race and her very first Supercross Freestyle event. My cousin Eric and his wife Angie came down from Minneapolis Minnesota on Friday and we went to the fair with them. My sister Christine also came down from Bloomington Minnesota with Garrett and Rachelle, Auntie Sue, Casey and the whole gang of 11 raided the Morelos Mexican restaurant for a meal that could not be beat. (sorry EJ about the St Paul thing! ha ha!)

On Saturday the 18th Scott flew in to Omaha and we picked him up for his first RAGBRAI. (boy does he not know what he is getting into…) We went to the Settle Inn hotel and somebody had checked into our room assuming our identity. The were sold out. Our prepaid room was already claimed….. After getting the manager involved we ended up getting a smoking room on the 2nd floor. (That means we can not bring our bike up to our room)

We hit the first pass through town shortly after breakfast and it already was so crowded we had to walk our bikes through town. We quickly pushed the bikes through town and started to ride again and now the “heard” was thinned out again so we could maneuver on the road. Around 9am we rolled into Emerson for our next break and some refreshments. We went into Spanky’s where they had the air conditioning turned way down and that helped cool us off. Even though the temperature was low, the humidity was 94% when I checked before we left Council Bluffs, making it uncomfortable.

At 10:55 we rolled into Red Oak, our destination and found the Firehouse Restaurant, an old firehouse. Again the AC was turned down so low Pam and Scott wanted to go get their jackets. We were some of the first to come into the restaurant, and by the time we left it was packed. Good call on that one!

We arrived in Greenfield feeling pretty good, especially since we had a tail wind for the last half of the ride.  The guy at the bike shop couldn’t find anything wrong with the bearings or brakes and couldn’t determine what was causing the “pulling” sensation.  He told us to ride tomorrow and if it keeps doing it he’d tear into it…

Once we picked up the bag and met up with Scott, we found our hostess for this evening, Shirley.  Team Navy is camping out at her and James’ home this evening, so we located them at the Fareway grocery store, and Scott was able to put his bike in their trailer and ride with them the four miles down a dirt road to Shirley’s house.  Brian and I weren’t so lucky, we followed Shirley in her van.  It really wasn’t so bad, but we did discover that we couldn’t shift into our climbing gears.  Brian found the problem.  One of the gear cable housings separated, so we’re getting ready to head back into town to a bike shop to get it fixed.

Until tomorrow!                                                                                               A Navy seaman on his sail bike....

Pam

RAGBRAI Day 3 Pedaling Day # 40 Miles today – 79.2 Daily ride time – 5 hrs 43 min Average – 13.9 mph Daily Climb – 4,470 feet Total BRAA mileage – 2,698 Weather leaving Greenfield, IA @ 0543 hrs– dark cloudy skies, temp 61 degrees wind from NE @ 5 Weather arriving, Indianola, IA @ 1:30  – cloudy skies, temp 64 wind North @ 15 The alarm again went off at 4:30 this morning. We had a bit of a logistical issue – it rained all night so the 4 miles of gravel roads back into town were a little soft, so James was kind enough to load our bikes (and us) into his Ford pick up and haul us into town so we could get our baggage on the truck. (Thanks again James!) We then were able to start off at 5:43. There were many people who already were on the road early today. Six o’clock is the official start time but there we at least a thousand bikers who started off earlier than us. After the usual 5 mile gourmet coffee stop and the 15 mile breakfast burrito stop at the Farm Boys everything was going well for us. Then at 8:05 it started raining on us. Scott had decided that while donning his rain gear he would give us his fanny pack – no big deal – it had his money and cell phone in it. (more on this later) Just after it started raining the Iowas conservation people were giving out the free bananas and free water so Scott stopped but we did not.Photo Left: Scott shows off his "RAGBRAI VIRGIN" brandingPhoto Center: Tow hot air balloons over Indianola (out of many)Photo Right: Brian and the bike mechanic fixing the rear shifter problem 42 miles into our ride Pam and I stopped for lunch. Still no sign of Scotty. It was now 9:30 and the rain had just quit for the day. After a great Gyros and some cinnamon almonds we were back on the road. On the edge of town the Cliff Bars people were giving out free Cliff bars so Pam grabbed a dozen Cliff bars. (the price was right) The wind had started to blow 15 mph out of the North and we had just started to ride North. Because of our procrastination there now were many bicyclers on the road so drafting became fairly easy. At one point we drafted behind another tandem bike to find out it was Miss Iowa on the back. They have name plates on many bikes and it said Miss Iowa so I pulled up next to her wearing her crown and had to ask and she verified that she was in deed Miss Iowa, riding across Iowa on a bicycle.

 We turned South for the last 6 miles and Pam and I had the bike up to 30 mph even on the flats. Yoo hoo! At 1:30 we made it into Indianola and found the luggage truck on the Simpson College campus and low and behold, Scott was waiting for us, tired, hungry, and just had changed his shirt to a dry one he had with him. Alas the missing person report would not need to filed. We then called our host for the evening Roger, and he was only two blocks away so he rode his bike over to the campus to escort us to his house since all the streets we blocked off to car traffic.          Our hosts Roger and Joan At Rogers house we met his wife Joan and did visitations while each of us took turns in the shower. Both Roger and Joan were serving food at the church so I called my father, who drove up from Arizona, to drive us to go out to dinner. What a mess this town has with all the streets blocked off! The streets that do allow car traffic are so jammed up there are lines of cars. It sure pays to ride the bike around town! We spent the evening walking around with Deloris and my father taking in the RAGBRAI experience (the first part with Scott taking a nap in the car). The town of 15,000 people now has over 40,000 people looking to be entertained, including us! What a day!

Until tomorrow!

Brian

RAGBRAI Day 5

PamRAGBRAI Day 7 (Final Day) Pedaling Day # 44 Miles today – 68.8 Daily ride time – 4 hrs 37 min Average – 15.1 mph Daily Climb – 1,553 feet Total BRAA mileage – 3,024 Weather leaving Mount Pleasant, IA @ 0522 hrs– clear, 67’F wind NW @ 5 mph Weather arriving Fort Madison, IA @ 12:02 – clear, 82’F wind NW @ 9 mph Today being the final day of RAGBRAI we were excited to complete our trek across Iowa for our third time and also excited to continue our BRAA adventure on our own. We set the alarm clock for 4:15 since we have not seen Scott now for 36 hours and figured we could get ready in our usual 30 minutes. As we were getting ready we could hear Vern quietly in the kitchen getting some coffee made up – so how could we say no to a good old cup of Joe.

After fueling up off we went!  The homes and landscape continued to be breathtaking as we rolled along the mighty Miss.  At about mile 30 we stopped at a Casey’s convenience store in the town of Warsaw, which was our last opportunity to rest comfortably until Quincy.  We spoke with two other female cyclists who had ridden yesterday’s RAGBRAI, and were pedaling around the area for a few days themselves.  They were self contained, and camping out for a few days and seemed to be having a great time.  The exercise and freedom of cycling probably has a lot to do with attitude!

We rode the remaining 34 miles with only one quick bathroom break.  Other than the heat from the direct sun, we were feeling really good.  The clouds did shade us periodically, which was great!  When we reached Quincy we climbed up for a while as we went in search of a restaurant.  We ate Mexican food for lunch, and found our motel just about a half mile away.

Today’s ride was a bit lonely without Scotty and the other 20,000 or so riders…  Also had to pay attention to our route again.  Back to the maps!  Scott e-mailed to let us know he made it home safely.  I think he really enjoyed himself.

Time for some much needed rest!  -  Pam

Photo Right: Kudzu vines overtaking the trees in the Illinois river valley. It is incredible how fast the topography has changed in just one pedaling day!

Today’s ride was great in the fact that now that RAGBRAI was over, and we were starting so early again, we could see the animals again. This morning we saw deer and fox and now the birds were again singing to us. (During the RAGBRAI there were so many bikers we never did hear the birds…)

We changed our route today – our original route was to cross over into Missouri and go through Hannibal and Louisiana Missouri but since Pam and I had already driven through there before and there were twice as many hills than is we stayed on the Illinois side we decided to go it on our own (without the Adventure Cycling maps). Going our new route also lets us take a ferry across the Mississippi instead of taking a bridge. So for our route today 90% of our hills would be in the first 18 miles then we would be down in the Mississippi river valley and be nice and flat. Yeah! We stopped for breakfast (finally!) at the highway intersection of US54 and IL96 (no official town) which was 40 miles into our ride. That was the longest we have ever ridden without breakfast but there just was not anything sooner or we would have stopped. From there the road just followed the Mississippi closely, winding through the trees along the bank of the river providing for some very dramatic back drops for us. Then with 14 miles to go we turned East and climbed over our last hill and back down into the Illinois river valley and started to follow the Illinois river South into our overnight town of Hardin. We arrived into Hardin (pop 1,000) just before noon to find the city water main had broken and we would not have any water until 4 – 5pm. (no showers?? Bummer!) The temperature on the bank thermometer read 90’F (my bike said 95’F) but the humidity was so high it felt much like Florida in the summer. After meeting the nicest hostess (Sue the owner) at our 9 room hotel (the hotel) we dropped off our bags and went for lunch. Lunch was almost like a picnic as they served everything on paper plates and used plastic utensils due to the water outage – but the quality of the food was top notch! Amazingly after lunch we went to the small store in town and they still had gallons of water for sale so we purchased our water for tomorrows trip. By the time we returned Sue had cranked down the AC in our room and Pam finally got a big old cheeser on her face as she said “nap time!”. And now as I am typing (3pm) the radar shows a large storm cell coming so I looked out the window and it is starting to rain – getting up early pays off again!

Until tomorrow!

After three hours of riding we were both hungry, so we stopped at the nearest restaurant, a Waffle House.  The omelet and grits tasted great as we were both famished.  After eating we continued on to St. Charles.  We found a touristy area with red brick streets, and plenty of shops right next to the Katy Trail.  We pedaled through St. Charles a bit to see if there were any mom and pop motels around, and when we didn’t find any we rode back to the tourist area to the coffee shop with free wi-fi.  Isn’t life grand!  We met a couple there who biked up just after us during their morning ride.  We chatted with them about cycling and all the wonderful benefits both mentally and physically, and they invited us to stay with them at their home in St. Louis.  Brian had just booked a cheap Ramada room for us ($44/night-yeah!), and besides, we have three days before our 48 hour trip home… so we opted out of this “warm shower” opportunity.  There are so many interesting and incredibly nice people out there!

July 30 - 31, 2009

We spent two days riding the Metro around St. Louis and taking in the sights. The most depressing sight was the holocaust museum and the most bazaar was the city museum. The city museum is a great place for all ages especially children. There are more hands on displays and slides than anywhere we have ever seen. There is also an aquarium, architecture exhibit, and a make your own section that people can make anything from paper snow flakes to leather pouches. They also have a circus training facility, Ferris wheel on the roof, and a shoe lace factory. Yes, quite diverse and bazaar.

 GOTO August