30 June - Day 32: Waubonse State Park IA to Mount Ayr IA - 141.5 km @ 18.3 km/h

It was a beautiful sunny morning and I awoke to the sound of birds. During the night I had even heard an owl nearby, its deep call was something else. Once again I indulged myself with a bit of a sleep in and then I spread out my sleeping bag, pillow and mat in the sun to take advantage of the heat. It was going to be a very hot day as it was in the high 20’s even though it was not yet 9 a.m. Indeed, at 3 p.m. I passed a place indicating it was 35 degrees.

After a shower I had a leisurely breakfast and worked on my journal. It was great having a picnic table to sit at and a power plug, makes they typing all that much easier. For those who are wondering at the technology I’m using it consists of a Toshiba Libretto 20 palmtop computer. It is about the size of a paperback and is a full Windows 95 machine with a colour screen. The keys are about ½ the regular size which makes typing a bit difficult at times, and to compound this it has a Japanese keyboard as I sourced it from Japan when they were first released. It sure beats having a full notebook with me, which is what I’ve done other times. I also have an IBM Travelstar 10E which is a 10 GB PCMCIA hard drive. If you travel these are a must as the drive is compact and self powered from the PCMCIA port. I have all my backups on it just in case there is an emergency and I need to access some work. Finally, I have a HP Photosmart 200E digital camera which, at present, is not working. It uses Compact Flash storage so I have a PCMCIA flash card reader which fits into the Libretto. The advantage of this is that you don’t need to lug around cables and it also saves on the battery life of the camera.

As I was writing a ranger came up to check my permit and to tidy up the sites. His name was Dwight and he was a typically friendly American. I learned that he had been in the US Navy for 15 years and during that time had seen a lot of the Pacific, but unfortunately not N.Z. He then became a locomotive mechanic for the railway and finally, a park ranger. Quite a varied career! He explained to me both about the railways and the local geology and was a wealth of information on both. In fact, I couldn’t get him to pause to take a breath, but that was OK since I learned some things.

When he finally moved on I continued working and listened to National Public Radio which had some excellent documentaries on. One was entitled 51% and was similar to Radio 4’s "Woman’s Hour". It discussed issues pertaining to women and gave me insight into some of the social problems faced by women in the U.S.A. and elsewhere. Made me thankful to be a man.

I finally pushed off about 11 a.m. and headed up to the lookout. The Americorp volunteers were there cutting in stairs to help people up the final 30 m to the top. I commented facetiously that the stairs would stop people from driving all the way to the crest and told them of my experiences in Yosemite at Mirror Lake. They laughed and said that before they put in a concrete barrier someone had tried just that! While they were working they were listening to a police chase on their walkie-talkie radio. This was real-life action and every so often a voice would come on with the sound of sirens in the background updating where they were, or where they were going to head this miscreant off. I enquired (seriously) if any of the action was taking place on Highway 2 as I needed was to become a hood ornament on some pickup truck driven by Billie-Bob who is trying to outrun the local police. Fortunately it was some distance away.

The view from lookout was magnificent. You could see west into Nebraska across the Missouri river and I would estimate the visibility at in excess of 50 km. It was a peaceful setting (except for the car chase) and I can see why the first explorers were so taken with the area. There was a quote from Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition that he came upon this spot while hunting for elk and was so taken with the view of the vast prairies that he forgot about the elk. I’d believe it. The quote also mentioned the complete absence of any trees, which is the opposite to today. I must admit that I like the trees.

After filling my water bottles at the fountain I headed down the road to Highway 2. Let me try and describe what it was like. Whereas Nebraska was largely flat and devoid of trees, except for the areas before and after Lincoln, Iowa has a much more rolling terrain. There is also an abundance of water and this, combined with the terrain, seems to have allowed them to cultivate far more trees than I have seen since I left the Rockies. It was very beautiful to look over these green, rolling hills which were covered in corn and have the vistas broken by irregular lines and clumps of trees. It also made the cycling more pleasant as there was the musty smells that accompany trees and lots to look at by the side of the road.

There is always a downside and this was no exception. The downside was that with rolling terrain comes hills—and there were lots of them. During the first 25 km I estimate that there was one hill every kilometre (I measured the distance and divided by the number of hills). Now these weren’t the huge mountains that I had crossed in the Rockies, but the terrain was such that you never got up enough momentum on the downhill run to zoom all the way to the top of the next hill. To compound things, one could generally see the 3 to 4 hills ahead of you and then nothing, giving rise to the misconception that one was approaching the end of it all. Well, it didn’t end and by 12:15 all this work had made me mighty hungry so I had a break by the side of the road and had lunch. Having done only all of 28 km I knew it was going to be a long day …

Even though it was the Friday before the 4th of July holiday weekend, traffic was not that heavy. Perhaps that is also a reflection of the small population size of Iowa: about 3 million for the entire state. However, notwithstanding this, the absence of a rideable shoulder made the cycling uncomfortable—I guess that I’ve been spoiled by the other states I’ve been through to date. At least there is usually no traffic in the oncoming lane so passing traffic often gives me a wide berth.

The day progressed slowly as there was still a headwind to battle. This has become depressing since I have not had 6 days with strong headwinds. In some respects one would expect the hills to exacerbate things, but they often provided a break wherein there would be some limited shelter from the wind. It was definitely better than in Nebraska since I had a similar average speed with the hills as I did there without hills.

I came to the town of Clarinda after about 60 km and was feeling the need for a cold drink so I headed into the centre of town. It was nestled in a valley and was what one envisages a typical small American town to be. Well kept houses and gardens with people sitting on their porches, some of them in these swing chairs. There was a tidiness about the place which made it especially attractive; it did not look wealthy, just proud. On the outskirts of town was an imposing building complex which was the local community college. Its architecture is of the late 1800’s with lots of Victorian era brick buildings.

The centre of town had a square upon which the local court house was located. I cycled around it and admired the building which was also impressive. There obviously is money in this area. Unlike a number of other towns I have been in, all the shops in the centre of town were occupied, the sign of a healthy economy. There was a statue of a Civil War shoulder with the inscription ‘In memory of those who fell in defence of the Union’. It was in pristine condition so the locals seem to also take pride in their history.

There was a petrol station with a convenience shop so I stopped there and got a bottle of orange juice and a cup of ice. Sitting outside in the shade I enjoyed every mouthful of it. I watched as people drove up to purchase things from the shop. It was disconcerting to see how few of them bothered to turn off their engines as they went inside. This happened even when there was nobody in the vehicle or when the windows were down so it couldn’t be because of the air conditioning. It is such a needless waste of energy and an unnecessary contributor to pollution. Then again, it does take effort to turn a key.

While I was there an elderly man came by and chatted. He told me that there was an old railway line running North to South outside of the town of Shenandoah which has been turned to a cycle path. About 20 miles long, it receives a lot of visitors from both Iowa and Missouri. The ultimate intention is to tie it in with a similar cycle path in Missouri, although local farmers have not been too keen on the idea, with some bulldozing away parts of the path across their land. Having cycled on former railway lines in the U.K. I can attest that they are a pleasure to ride, with gentle grades, no traffic, and usually a good surface. There is a group in the U.K. called Sustrans who are looking at setting up a network of cycle paths on disused railway lines and this has proved be a boon to tourism. The same would happen here were it to eventuate so I wish them luck.

One endearing aspect of small towns in America is the way in which they go to almost any extreme to find a claim to fame. Clarinda was no exception as it was the birthplace of the ‘Big Band’ musician Glenn Miller. Entering into town there was a sign directing you to his birthplace (I didn’t go) and as I cycled through town I passed the ‘Glenn Miller Armoury’. A few days ago in North Platte Nebraska I had seen a special section in the museum dedicated to Glenn Miller—he had lived there as a child—and there is the Glenn Miller Highway as well in Nebraska. In Denver they have the Glenn Miller centre at the University of Colorado where he studied. As you can see, almost any association is important.

Other towns are even more limited with their options. I passed one sign that the town was the home of an ‘All American’ athlete, from 1965. Others were more recent, such as their local high school football team winning the championship 8 years ago. There is also the quaint title of an ‘All American City’ and even if it has been 30 years since they won cities still have signs up as you enter that they once won this award.

I continued East along Highway 2 from Clarinda and the traffic was now a bit heavier, but still nothing to speak of. I was passed by a number of Hot Rods with their loud, deep mufflers grabbing my attention. One of them had the memorable licence plate ‘RATFINK’. I don’t know if I would like to have my pride and joy called that. I observed that I must be in the heartland of America as I saw few, if any, imports. All the vehicles seemed to be GM, Ford or Chrysler, with the first two having a monopoly on pickup trucks which are exceedingly common. No BMWs or Mercedes in this part of the country, and the Japanese seem to be afraid to show themselves.

It was quite hard going for me and so I decided to have a rest. I parked off the side of the road and sat down with my back against a stop sign and promptly fell asleep for half an hour! Obviously I needed it as I woke up quite refreshed. I cycled into Bedford (hope of the famous Bedford Bulldogs) and stopped at a market to stock up on provisions. I bought a delightful fresh fruit salad which was nice and cold and ate it sitting outside the shop, watching the people come and go. One very obese woman waddled by with grocery bags bulging with Dorito chips. Could there be some association between her size and eating habits? Hmmmm…

After my rest and the fruit salad I was feeling quite perky. It was also late in the day when the wind quietens down and the traffic is lower. I would love to know about my Circadian Rhythm since most days I feel full of beans after about 18:00. I had only gone 100 km and decided to cycle on and see how far I could get. The terrain was also changing, with the regular short hills giving way to longer hills with flat sections between. It was delightful riding and I thoroughly enjoyed it, a marked change to much of the day when it had been tedious to say the least.

At one point I saw an object by the side of the road which looked like a tortoise. Sure enough it was and I turned back to see if it was still alive which it was. It was over 300 mm long and the fellow looked very old. When I went to pick it up it pulled its head into the shell just like they do in the movies. I was surprised at how heavy it was—about the weight of one to two bricks. I moved it off the shoulder to the embankment and pointed it downhill towards the nearby pond which must have been its home. Lis, who always rescues hedgehogs, would have been proud of me.

I reflected on the wildlife that I have seen this trip, and how it has changed. Last Sunday while cycling through the desert outside of Sterling Colorado I saw a wild Coyote cross the road and watch me from a distance. It was similar to a fox but yet different. I have seen lots of sheep and admired them as they have gracefully bounded across the road and jumped fences as if they were not there. I have seen a wide array of bird life and now a tortoise. God has created such an incredible array of wildlife.

To this should be added the roadkill that I have passed. This has markedly changed in recent days. In the desert there were deer but since just before Lincoln there have been a lot of racoons, skunks and bullfrogs. I must say that racoons seem to make the biggest mess when hit as they are often spread over 30-50 m of road, quite an achievement for such a small animal. The ranger commented to me that the fact that I see so many racoons by the side of the road is a sign of the low price for skins. When prices are high—$20/skin—people pick them up for skinning but current prices are about $5/skin so they can’t be bothered.

I reached Mount Ayr as the sun set behind the hills. As I entered town I saw them playing a baseball game under lights to the left of the road. There was also a public pool which was full of kids given the shouts of joy and laughter emanating from it. I had decided to stay in a motel and get a good nights rest and was pleased to find one—many of the smaller towns don’t have them. I had a wonderful shower—my 30 sunscreen leaves a waxy feeling if I have had a very hot day. After trying unsuccessfully to connect to the Internet (digital phone system) I collapsed to a deep sleep, satisfied with my progress. I had made 40+ km in the last few hours with much less effort than earlier in the day. Let’s hear it for these late afternoon runs.

On to the Next Day

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