After seven days and 485 miles of cycling across Iowa self-supported, we reached the mighty Mississippi and Guttenberg, IA today.
It was a beautiful sight:
I feel slightly more elite than I did before the week began.
I took a few thousand photos. I'll try and post some of them, along with a little text in back postings over the next week.
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Two days of awesome riding. In Lake Milles now. Only a few more miles to Northwood and an evening with Berta in Mason City.
Made it to Estherville, IA at ~ 4:00 today, after a hard evening in Sheldon, IA, where we had to leave our tents and seek shelter in the middle school, during a deadly thunderstorm.
Today's 84 miles weren't too bad, despite the rain we had during a portion of the journey. The last 2-3 miles were sweet. We finished the ride through a beautiful state park, and I smoked Spenser to the finish line during the last mile.
Tomorrow: 62 miles to Algona.
Despite the adversities encountered so far, this, the world's greatest cycling event for mortals, is well worth the effort. A glorious event. Highly recommended!
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65.5 miles, Dutch hospitality, a near death experience in a killer thunderstorm, and sleeping much of the night on a middle school gym floor:
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The tent we almost died in (luckily only a few feet from the bike path that a police officer came driving down and a very a short distance from the school):
Spenser's folks drove us from Ames to Le Mars. We were tempted to drive to the Big Sioux River and across to South Dakota, so we could bike the 20 or so miles to Le Mars, before camping for the evening, but we decided against it. If I had it to do over again, I would have started in South Dakota.
We ate at Godfather's Pizza:
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It was damn hot. This thing said 104 degrees:
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After we found a suitable place to camp, amidst team Airforce and between a Catholic church and its cemetery, the Villwock's said their teary goodbyes, and we setup camp:
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At midnight we were treated to a fireworks display. It woke us up out of a dead sleep. We were woken again at ~ 5:30 AM by the Airforce bugle call.
After disc golf, we hit the Bali Satay house. Iwan posed with us in front of his restaurant:
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In honor of Rossi, we ate at Pita Pita for lunch:
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The West Ames HyVee may have the world's largest selection of orange juice:
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The yogurt and milk selections aren't anything to sneeze at either:
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Nor is their booze selection:
Check out the corn:
Spenser Villwock and I would like to invite you to an exclusive gathering at the Villwock home this Friday for a bit of food and fun.
Why?
Spenser and I are riding RAGBRAI this year, will only be in Ames a short time, and would like to see you.
Where?
515 Lynn Avenue, Ames, IA
When?
7:00pm, Friday, July 22, 2005
RSVP by Thursday, July 21, if you can.
If that kind of thing isn't your scene, there will be two other opportunities:
Sat July 23rd @ ~ 8:30 AM - Disc Golf at the Carroll Marty Disc Golf Course
Sat July 23rd @ ~ 11:30 AM - Lunch at the Bali Satay House
Deno has a quicktime video of two Iowa State University landmarks being demolished this morning. Click on the image to view the video.
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Before yesterday, I had never been to the Grand Canyon:
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Here's a photo that captures some of the view of Albuquerque that I see near the end of by bike ride home from work:
The photo doesn't do reality justice.
Richard and I are having a friendly competition to see how many times we can ride our bikes to work, and today I took a commanding three ride lead. The whiteboard looks something like:
| Matt's Rides to Work | Richard's Rides to Work |
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I also feel compelled to mention that my ride is a couple of miles longer than Richard's and has one additional large climb.
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