Minnesota
Made it today late morning
(Susan here)
The eponymous street name:
Iowa continues to provide the hilliest, steepest terrain we’ve encountered so far on our trip. However, since we’re in better shape now, there’s no hint of rain, and the winds are calm, it’s really not that huge of a deal. Also, it’s kind of awesome to have 2-mile descents, even if it did mean you were making a big climb to get to the top. We started out the day pretty far west of the Mississippi in Elkader and jogged back in to the river, hitting it in Marquette, IA and mostly following it along the Great River Road up to Lansing, IA, where we are tonight. (Or last night, by the time this post gets published.) The farmland to the west of the river is hilly in its own right, but the numerous small rivers that empty into the Mississippi, cutting their way through the huge bluffs lining the big river, really do make some hills. Our two biggest, longest climbs today were between Harpers’ Ferry, IA and Lansing.
At the top of the first of those two climbs, I met a pack of about a dozen dogs, who started barking en masse when they saw Brice go by but then sprinted out onto the road at full speed when they saw me. They were some sort of border collie-looking breed, except smaller. They surrounded my bike on all sides, barking and biting at my wheels. I tried yelling “hey!” at them as loud as I could, but it didn’t work. I was thinking three things simultaneously: One: Is my rabies vaccination from 2004 still good? Two: Are they less likely to bite me if I pedal slowly or quickly? Three: Is there any way I could possibly be held liable if a truck comes by right now and runs them over? Around that time, Brice got close again and let out one loud, deep, “Aaaaaauuuuuughhhhhh!!!!!” and most of them fell back. Two more yells and the rest left me alone, plus I was at the downhill part finally. I can’t yell nearly that loud, but I used to be able to do a pretty good horror-movie quality high-pitched scream so I’ll try that if I’m unfortunate enough to have a next time with another pack.
Another observation about the farmland around here, besides the hilly scenicness of it, is that there seem to be a lot of farms. Every half-mile abouts there’s a house surrounded by the various outbuildings. In Illinois, the individual farms are definitely much much farther apart. Although there do seem to be plenty of corn/soybean farms around, there’s also a lot of livestock, as Brice noted yesterday, plus a lot of hay fields. Must be nice to farm something where you don’t need quite as much land to be profitable and actually can have neighbors.
Side note: We met an old guy in a convenience store in Harpers’ Ferry, where we had stopped for our mid-afternoon pop and ice cream break, who asked us where we were biking to and from. Upon hearing the answer, he told us, “My condolences.”
Here’s some more pictures:
Small-town life:
Animal tracks: /em> (On one of our climbs, there was a slew of animal tracks that had been made when the cement was still wet. There seems to have been some epic small-mammal drama going on. Since clearly we have friends who seem to know so much about wild animals, what critters left these footprints?)
Me coming up hill number two between Harpers’ Ferry and Lansing: (Brice always beats me up hills.)
Series of bluffs along the Mississippi:
The Mississippi:
The famous foam roller in use at our campsite:
Iowa also has some hills.
(brice writing)
Today we biked ~64 miles from Dubuque to Elkader, IA. As previously mentioned, we’re now following the ACA Northern Tier route and no longer spend our evenings trying to figure out which roads are paved and which are gravel. We climbed out of the Mississippi valley through some of the most picturesque farm scenery we’ve seen since Ohio (sorry IN and IL, you’re too flat). Pictures don’t really do it justice, but here’s one of the views we got:
Hard to see but there were cows hanging out down in that valley. Which brings up the big downside to Iowa so far… while we’ve been eating a lot of meat on this trip and don’t want to complain about where it comes from, it still has to be noted that Iowa is the most pungent state we’ve been in by a long shot.
Some notes: Susan wants you to know that we heard an eagle scream, a sound we were probably able to identify primarily from hearing it on the intro to the Colbert Report. A big congratulations goes out to the Dubuque Perkins, which managed to serve us the only bad breakfast we’ve had on the trip (we’d already climbed out of downtown dubuque where the good restaurants are). Finally, we were super excited to find an open ice cream stand in Colesburg:
Tomorrow we are dropping back to the mississippi and heading north!
Prom night in Dubuque
(brice writing)
After a relaxing night and morning catching up with family friends in a great setting outside Galena, we headed out onto the hilliest terrain we’ve faced since Ohio. While we’re a bit unused to the hills, we’re in much better shape than the last time we saw steep terrain and made good time into Dubuque, IA. The bridge over the Mississippi was a bit dodgy and didn’t afford an opportunity to stop and take a Welcome to Iowa picture but we’re here nonetheless. Dubuque is a really nice little town and is home to the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium. Our initial target for the day had been Dyersville but we were equivocal about that plan so decided to hang out in Dubuque for the afternoon.
The museum is very good and has refreshingly accurate info on the impact of dams/levees on flooding and river ecosystems (for our stream ecology friends, they mentioned caddis flies as a bioindicator species). I’ve always found watersheds to be a powerful tool for thinking about ecosystems and geography at both macro and micro scales; our individual actions in Iowa will slowly trickle downstream and eventually be washed into the gulf of mexico at 3 million gallons per minute. One thing I didn’t know is that by going through North Dakota, we’ll actually briefly cross into a watershed that drains up into the hudson bay. So Canada has something to look forward to.
The restaurant closest to our luxurious Motel 6 was host to some teens out for prom night. In addition to some extremely tasteful dresses featuring pink sequins there was also a white suit; environmental impact reports are forthcoming.
Tomorrow we will meet up with the ACA Northern Tier route and will no longer have to plan our route each day. We’re planning on camping in Elkader, followed by Lansing on Monday, Homer on Tuesday, and just north of Wabasha MN on Wednesday.
Here I am checking out the aforementioned dodgy bridge from the Iowa side:
Here Susan poses in front of a big old paddlewheel:
And here I pilot a virtual tugboat:
Jo Daviess County, IL, didn’t get the memo…
…that this state is SUPPOSED to be flat:
(Yes, we biked from down there to up here today, and farther.)
We made it tonight to Galena, IL, our last stop in the great state of Illinois. Tomorrow we cross the Mississippi into Iowa. We got our first glimpse of the Mississippi today in Savanna:
(This was taken north of Savanna; that’s the bridge in that town). It’s kind of crazy finally seeing the Mississippi: Ever since we crossed the Eastern Continental Divide back in western Maryland, the Mississippi has been at the center of at least the hydrogeological universe we’ve been traveling through. Since the divide, we’ve been traveling slowly downhill, on average. Once we cross that river, we’ll be going on one long, 1,500-or-so-mile-long uphill slog until we get to the western continental divide in Montana or Idaho. Crossing the Mississippi will definitely be turning a new page.
Tonight we’re staying with Barbara and Don, friends of Brice’s parents from when they lived in Chicago around the time Brice was born. Barbara and Don haven’t seen Brice since he was 10 so I’m sure his bushy beard was a sight to see.
At the West Coast already, I guess!
(susan here)
Made it to Oregon yesterday! The rest of the trip really flew by… Boy, they told us that North Dakota and eastern Montana were going to be dull, but you’d think we would have noticed going over the Rockies at least. Oh well.
OK, for realz. Spent last night camping in White Pines Forest State Park, south west of the town of Oregon, Illinois. We’ve heard the town name pronounced both ways: correctly–rhyming with “polygon”–and incorrectly–like the illiterates out west say it. Regardless, it was good to camp again, our first time since before Pittsburgh. Perfect weather, AND the state park had its own restaurant that served the appropriately named, cross-country-biker-friendly Paul Bunyan Breakfast. Good times.
Mom, we ate pretty much all those cinnamon rolls by lunchtime. Thanks.
St. Charles field trips
We went for a bike ride down the fox river and were reminded of St Charles’ civic commitment:
Further down the fox we found a windmill:
And some nice scenery:
Today we took a trip to Susan’s father’s workplace, Fermilab, where they have buffalo:
Before it was shut down, the buffalo helped the particles accelerate around the tevatron:
Tomorrow we are headed to white pines state forest outside of Oregon, IL and then Friday we’ll head to Galena. Saturday will bring an exciting new state, Iowa– will we visit the field of dreams? Stay tuned!!
Rest days galore
(brice writing)
After successfully tackling 148 miles in the last two days, we rolled in to Susan’s parents house in St. Charles last night. First on the agenda was correcting an embarrassing gap in my Chicago education; I had never had “Italian Beef.” Which is, evidently, a tasty sandwich.
We’re planning on resting here for 3 days and then rolling back out Thursday. Between the rain and our tired legs we’re excited to not be riding today; we’ll probably take a short (~20 miles) ride along the Fox river tomorrow without our panniers, just to keep our legs from getting too out of shape. Tonight we’re headed to Gino’s East to meet up with the extended family from Susan’s side and fulfill our deep dish pizza cravings.
On our way into St. Charles, we stopped at a popular park from Susan’s childhood that was built before modern safety standards:
Dwight.
We set a new distance record today at 84 miles despite heat and late unexpected headwinds. We’re super tired but should be in St Charles (Susan’s hometown) for some rest days tomorrow.
Bumming around central Illinois
(Susan here)
The last couple days we’ve been spending in the vicinity of Champaign-Urbana, where my mom’s family is from. Both sides of her family have farmed around here for generations. The friends we visited in Urbana live by my maternal grandfather’s family’s old farmland, which is now developed. There’s a street named for the family, which we crossed on the way to our friends’:
We arrived at Su and Martin’s house yesterday late morning. I had called Su in advance to make sure she was out ready to get some sweet action shots:
We had a great time hanging with her and with her 20-month-old son, Liam, who initially was not quite sure about us but then took a liking to our foam roller, and, by extension, us. Here’s Liam showing off his mad foam rolling skillz:
He shared some of his biking gear with us, too:
This afternoon we set off for a quick ride to Monticello, to the abode of my aunt and uncle Nancy and Larry (on my dad’s side). The ride was pretty unbelievable. We took basically one road the entire distance–an exact marathon length of 26.2 miles–and much its length it was a tiny country lane that really shouldn’t have been paved but for some reason was, meaning it was basically a private, luxury bike path. We could actually ride side by side for miles and have conversation! And neither any thunderstorms nor wind materialized. We averaged almost 15 mph, I think. In Monticello, we took a tour of the lovely homes in the area and of the Allerton Gardens, and met my aunt and uncle’s 4 cats and several of their friends.
Tomorrow we’re heading north to Dwight, primarily riding along rte. 47, and will stay with a Warm Showers host. It’s about an 80 mile ride, but we’ll have a tailwind and everything is flat as a pancake so it should be a piece of cake. If conditions continue to be good, we’ll be back in my hometown the day after.
Susan and Brice's Bike Blog 