When you decide to bike across America, often times the thought of spending countless hours alone, pedaling over and over slips past the train of thought. You get caught up in the wonder and adventure, and forget that some days will simply be miserable.
On that extremely cynical note, if there ever were a ‘most boring day to blog about’ July 15th would take the cake. Yesterday’s turmoil left our professional cycling team ready for a spotless day of ridding, and the 60 miles of rolling hills through Iowa provided just that.
Upon crossing the graceful Bob Kearny pedestrian bridge spanning the Missouri River, the group rode straight into the countryside of Iowa, noting, “at least this state is greener than Nebraska?” Now this is usually the point in the blog where we make an over the top, half-truth joke about one of the riders, but, to be honest, no one had any significant issues on this day. No flats. No drama. No whining from Jason. Even Claire pedaled right on through these 5 hours of biking as if she were wearing a Livestrong bracelet and a yellow racing jersey.
Rolling into Anita, Iowa around 1p.m., our group quickly realized that the town of 900 had no campgrounds and that our mothers would kill us if we stayed at the ransacked motel located in the ‘downtown’ area. Piling into their unmarked van, the team turned west, and decided to spend the night in the already-passed city of Atlantic, Iowa (pop. 7257).
Perfect days are a blessing and a burden: they leave us with an usual sense of peace, but they lack the drama required for a memorable, ABC prime time television show. Des Moines, Iowa sat just 87 miles away from our Super 8, and with quiet souls our Brady bunch went to bed early in hopes of an early departure to the capital of Iowa.
Nice to read your blog.
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